Show imm IV A S e ad W UL A boes woes by henry y Ri webster service copyright br the dobbs bobba merrill co SYNOPSIS acting in good faith to aid a neighbor to r ruth ingraham Ingra Aam in a business wart way edward d ard patterson cashier of the tha ch achl eago agency of ft a ife insurance company la Is wrongly suspected by his wife f julia of infidelity her accusation s h him tor or business and he take a short h or t vacation on on hi his a return he to 1 deeply wounded by h his d daughter edith tellin telling hm him i lita his personal belongings are in ig th the s spare spar room having been bee T rem removed oved from to the h room which had been his and his cifes bedroom patterson accepts the situation as proof of his wife s belief I 1 in n his guilt edith seventeen years old Is worried over the estrangement of her parents her mother only partly succeeds succeed 8 in her efforts to comfort her the son edward junior Is at college A b business ineas matter brings arr an inventor or N james ames mmes mariner into pa rat batterson dersons terson s life if mariner ariner needs 6 with which to push his invention an automobile choke and patterson after a brief investigation vesti gation decides to go in with him ying the money and taking a part in the management without informing hl his family he resigns from the insurance company devoting his whole time to the pushing of the invention an old friend albert willard Wll lard Is frankly skeptical of the value of the no hoke choke P patterson atterson tells his wife of the change he has made she accepts accept the situation edith Is made aware of the change in the family fortunes by her mother telling tier her she has decided to part with the cook she ahe and edith to do the hou housework at christmas editha bohomol 1 a private iva to one puts on a play in w which h eh the h e girl has a part her brother edward c comes 0 anes from c college elege tor for the holidays with him la Is roger morgan whom edith had known as a child H her r mother asks ed edith ith to I 1 leave ea v a her bar present school and finish her studies dig at the public high school it will m mean an a saving of several hundred dollars and edith agrees A talk with roger morgan heartens her edward tells her he Is going to pay ay his own wa way T through h r I 1 the a university F ty and she dc decides id as to leave a ve school c hoot and fit herself to b become e come her fathers father s stenographer he H Is hu hurt rt bubber but her de termination determination Is vj vl d dent ent CHAPTER V j 9 the coward they compromised with edith it was agreed after an evenings argument and a mornings investigation by julia that the child might go to her nice little business college tor for a trial month by the end of that time if she bhe still wanted wanted to she could go to work for her father at the office it was he who insisted upon the delay ills his wife to his astonishment after she had bad heard what edith had to say about it was in favor of letting her take the plunge at once she was frankly over the plan ile he had never been able to make out whether julia believed in the auto choke choice or not she had never said she thought their own car ran better with it than before she blew cold when he blew hot she never took so dark a view of the future as when he came home buoyant over a good order or a gorgeous prospect yet when the prospect faded or the man who had bad sent in the big order turned out not to have the money to pay for it when lie be found himself drifting on the rocks ice s of despair slie she just took hold of him and pulled him through gli often he recalled bert willards saying that she was a good sport it rind had surprised him at the time and it surprised him still it was true true up to the hilt in a way it was true if you considered what she did but if a good sport was an adventurer who took hazards and defeats as a part even an enhancement of a game then julia was as little a sport as anyone he lanew less than he himself but whatever the source of her courage might be the steadfastness of it sometimes made him gasp and it was not he believed all a bluff bluet either from some source or other she was finding happiness she been so go cheerful in months lie ile wondered rather bleakly whether this might be due to the cessation of their marital relations was wai that part of their life something she had always hated and was it now her sustaining belief that she had escaped from it permanently 7 she confessed herself puzzled about the change in edith shed known more of the girls real feelings of course than he had anyhow she was delighted with the change of heart its really on her account more than yours julia amazingly told him that I 1 want tier her trained to earn her living I 1 dont want her ever to have to wake up to the tact fact that ashes helpless at the mercy of some one else any one else not even the best husband in the world she said it with such intensity that lie he asked before ho he stopped to think did you ever feel like that 1 I dont now BOW she said and he was wag glad she went on talking about edith without giving him a chance to ask any more questions you must make it a real job for her ned she told him earnestly pay her real wages whatever ashes worth and always pay them just as you pay the others and if she turns out not to be good enough discharge her dont try to make her feel that ashes just one of the family helping out dont try to pretend to anybody that ashes doing it for fun ile he said of course not in a rather lather aggrieved tone but he admitted to himself that this wits was exactly what he be had been meaning to try to pretend she had bad made him wince by putting her fin finger ger on a sore spot lie had never realized before that he was a snob but now the tact fact confronted him lie ile had been trying to find a way to save hla his face lie ile flinched from the thought of editha going in on the train with him every morning under the eyes of his more prosperous aci quain whose daughters have to go to work lie ile had bad had in the back of his mind even while julia talked the w whimsical explanation he would make to mariner when lie he told him who the new stenographer eapher was going to be hed always said that snobbery was a specialized form of cowardice lie ile a coward wa was 9 lie mariner looked a bit blank when edward told him of editha plan and his own tentative agreement to it but lie offered no overt objections shed find it a pretty dull way of spending tier her days lie thought but of course she have to stay if she found it so 1 I dont believe shell find it dull edwatd edward said it will take her a week or so to get the jiang hang of it and it may prove too much for her but if it does ill let tier her go and get some one else its to be a plain businesslike arrangement well pay her a fair sa salary lary and see that she earns it t its her own idea from the first but it iiii be a material help to me it if it works mariner said oh all right of course and apparently forgot all about it he was in a queer sort of mood these days anyhow it was hard to be sure you had his attention for anything upon edward editha presence was profoundly disturbing it gave the day a different color and texture from any that had gone before it wade made the office ri a different place that sort of electrical tingle which her presence put in the air be a permanent thing could it how long would it last why it would last edward found himself deciding exactly as long as lie he could play up to it on the day she saw him slack despondent frightened ready to quit the spell would be broken there had bad been nothing aggressively virtuous about her manner shed just been natural once indeed acied shed mildly shocked him by uttering a perfectly audible id d rill n over some mistake in her typing and once when s shed held bent over his desk to see some correction lie he was pointing out to her shed forgotten ajio at home and rumpled his hair no she was all right shed keep it up as long as he did as long as lie he remained the person she wanted him to be she be critical shed take him for granted as long as she could what she do was be sorry for him encourage him pull him up when she saw he was down she could pull him up wonderfully as long as s she he know it was necessary that was what it came to then he must never give himself away they got into the doldrums the impetus that their business had got from the automobile show in january had spent itself nobody now tools took any interest in his car the acce accessory mry game was hibernating be nothing much doing until spring or at least until a few fine days gave a hint that it was coming A real advertising campaign was the only thing that could possibly wake them up right now this was the burden of the sales mens complaints E edward dward did his best and tt it was a better best than he would have been capable of a month ago to inspirit them and keep them up to their work ile he admitted it was a handicap that they bereni better supported by advertising ver but a real campaign was out of the question the financial resources of the business run to it edward bad an out of town customer on his hands one day arld arid took him to lunch when he lle got back to the office about three lie he found the city salesman dictating a letter to edith the glimpse he h got t of the man through the glass door before he be opened it offended him the fellow was leaning over her closer than necessary and his good looking enough face wore a fatuous smile ile he looked around with a perceptible start asikis employer opened the door straightened up and said with a completely changed manner all yours very truly he seemed suddenly too in a great hurry to get out on his rounds lie ile had a lot of people to see he be told edward between now and six almost against his will and aware that his voice sound as casual as lie he meant it to edward asked ills Is that a business letter edith the girl laughed 1 I should say not I 1 she turned around to him with nothing in her face but a grin of perfectly spontaneous amusement its the silliest stun stuff you ever saw its a letter to a girl ile he la Is sort of a washout he dad edward sighed im inclined to think he Is he said the sigh was half rueful halt half relieved he was glad edith felt that way about him but this feeling he be kept to himself you be brokenhearted broken hearted then it if I 1 let him go he asked broken she whipped around upon him and saw BOW by hla his I 1 grin rin that he was teasing her ber ilo he really any good is he be she asked oh dear I 1 wish you could get somebody that was some borne good or I 1 wish she go on to complete tile the alternative alternate e and presently he asked tier her what ft hat it was ile he much want t to 0 somehow but the silence forced the question from him 1 I wish go out and sell th lie thing she said just to 0 show them up lie he tried to laugh that off as a simple simpie absurdity but he be found h he e e d n t founds let it go at that 1 I doubt 1 if f I 1 could 0 u I 1 d show them up in the first place he said you see ive never sold bola anything in my life theres a special technique about it that ive never neer learned and then of course I 1 have to he be here really especially now that arr mariner has practically faban boned us lie ile essayed a smile there ha has s jo to be somebody on tile the bridge you know well id be here she reminded him 1 I mean I 1 usually know what v lint to tell people now when they telephone one and ive sold three chokes this week to people who vi ho were driving by and stopped to see what it was like oil oh I 1 the fellow was leaning over her closer than necessary and pd his good folce were a fatuous smile of course she concluded after a pause 1 I know you really are too busy I 1 was only wishing I 1 kno know coulie that anybody who was any good could d sell those things the afternoon mall mail came in just then like a godsend and gave thim them something to do but that talk of f bo theirs forgotten ne ile believe e at least that slie she had bad forgotten it As for himself it kept gnaw gnawing I 1 ng away in his mind like a P persistent mouse audible whenever the silence gave him a chance to hear it lie ile be expected could he to rush out whenever lie he found a free moment and peddle their article about the neighborhood cant I 1 interest you in the mariner auto choke of course it was preposterous all the same he grew acutely self conscious about the periods of unwelcome leisure which kept cropping up during daring his business days and he resorted sometimes to rather farfetched occupations to nil fill them up did edith suspect the hollowness of his pretenses if she were to see through him what would she think how she account for his unwillingness to turn salesman now and then when he had a chance would she decide that he was lazy or afraid of course he believed belied la in the auto choke ile he believed it was a valuable adjunct to a car ile he believed that it actually wai was better more to be relied upon cheaper in the long run than any of the other devices in the market which pretended to do more or less the same thing he believed heartily enough in all this to hire glib young men to so go about telle people it was true trub and trying to persuade them theato to buy chokes on their representation that it was the only faul the had to find with these young men was that they do it well enough that pretty well disposed of his moral superiority perio perlo rity it oh he was making a mountain of a molehill I 1 hed been arguing with himself about it until lie he was was getting morbid the thing to do would be to put one of t the he chokes into his pocket some day walk into the nearest dearest garage he crime came to and sell them a dozen that would settle the question w whether hemer there was anything the matter with him or not take the sting out of editha 1 I know that anybody who was is any good could sell those things of 0 course shed been talking about the salesmen when alien slie she said that not about him anyhow hed do it when lie he had time and restore his sense of proportion leave his mind free for dealing with matters that were really important por tant naturally hed find it unpleasant a man of hla his years and position on to start out peddling to try to get the attention of a man who was busy or pretend ing to be about something else and want to listen to him to assume a manner of hollow goodfellow ship say friend ive got something here it made him sick to think about it call it itlear fear if you liked held hed do it though some time lie ile was going to have to do it ile he did discharge the city salesman and none of the applicants who answered his want ad in the paper was conceivably satisfactory the out of town salesman too was temporarily laid oft off mariner was more nearly nonexistent than ever lit he and edith had the office to themselves there came a particularly bad day no orders at all in the first mall mail an obviously disingenuous letter from a customer who owed them quite a lot of money offering ott ering a perfectly ninety day note instead of the check edward had counted upon another bad debt a dun that he simply the bart heart to answer a tax notice and a long chatty letter from a bond house announcing an attractive offering of municipal tax exempt securities curi ties that was all nothing to d do 0 out of doors the day was ironically Y III fine ne the sky it a pitiless cold blue the winters sun in great broad golden splashes making a mockery of his despair lie he shut his book and put down his pen edith at that moment had gone into the shop for a c consultation with charlie franklin ile he got up and put on his hat and overcoat with hands that trembled he picked up a sample choke and slipped it along with a pad of order blanks into his pocket ive got to go out for a while he told |