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“I hope you’ve had something to eat down-town. You’ll have to dress right away.” Percy came in and sat down. She looked up from the evening paper she was reading. “You’ve no time to sit down. We must start in fifteen minutes.”

He shaded his eyes from the glaring overhead light.

“I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere to-night. I’m all in.”

Mrs. Bixby rattled her paper, and turned from the theatrical page to the fashions.

“You’ll feel better after you dress. We won’t stay late.”

Her even persistence usually conquered her husband. She never forgot anything she had once decided to do. Her manner of following it up grew more chilly, but never weaker. To-night there was no spring in Percy. He closed his eyes and replied without moving:

“I can’t go. You had better telephone the Burks we aren’t coming. I have to tell you something disagreeable.”

Stella rose.

“I certainly am not going to disappoint the Burks and stay at home to talk about anything disagreeable.”

“You’re not very sympathetic, Stella.”

She turned away.

“If I were, you’d soon settle down into a pretty dull proposition. We’d have no social life now if I didn’t keep at you.”

Percy roused himself a little.

“Social life? Well, we’ll have to trim that pretty close for a while. I’m in debt to the company. We’ve been living beyond our means ever since we were married.”

“We can’t live on less than we do,” Stella said quietly. “No use in taking that up again.”

Percy sat up, clutching the arms of his chair.

“We’ll have to take it up. I’m seven hundred dollars short, and the books are to be audited to-morrow. I told young Remsen and he’s going to take my note and hold the money out of my pay-checks. He could send me to jail, of course.”

Stella turned and looked down at him with a gleam of interest.

“Oh, you’ve been playing solitaire with the books, have you? And he’s found you out! I hope I’ll never see that man again. Sugar face!” She said this with intense acrimony. Her forehead flushed delicately, and her eyes were full of hate. Young Remsen was not her idea of a “business man.”

Stella went into the other room. When she came back she wore her evening coat and carried long gloves and a black scarf. This she began to arrange over her hair before the mirror above the false fireplace. Percy lay inert in the Morris chair and watched her. Yes, he understood; it was very difficult for a woman with hair like that to be shabby and to go without things. Her hair made her conspicuous, and it had to be lived up to. It had been the deciding factor in his fate.

Stella caught the lace over one ear with a large gold hairpin. She repeated this until she got a good effect. Then turning to Percy, she began to draw on her gloves.

“I’m not worrying any, because I’m going back into business,” she said firmly. “I meant to, anyway, if you didn’t get a raise the first of the year. I have the offer of a good position, and we can live in an apartment hotel.”

Percy was on his feet in an instant.

“I won’t have you grinding in any office. That’s flat.”

Stella’s lower lip quivered in a commiserating smile. “Oh, I won’t lose my health. Charley Greengay’s a partner in his concern now, and he wants a private secretary.”

Percy drew back.

“You can’t work for Greengay. He’s got too bad a reputation. You’ve more pride than that, Stella.”

The thin sweep of color he knew so well went over Stella’s face.

“His business reputation seems to be all right,” she commented, working the kid on with her left hand.

“What if it is?” Percy broke out. “He’s the cheapest kind of a skate. He gets into scrapes with the girls in his own office. The last one got into the newspapers, and he had to pay the girl a wad.”

“He don’t get into scrapes with his books, anyway, and he seems to be able to stand getting into the papers. I excuse Charley. His wife’s a pill.”