Malcolm Lightener permitted the granite of his face to relax in a rueful smile. "I called you folks in to get your advice--not to have you run the whole shebang."

"We're going to run it, dad....Don't you like Ruth Frazer?"

"I like her. She seems to be a nice, intelligent girl....Cries all over a man's office...."

"I like her, too, and so will mother when she meets Ruth. I like her a eap, Bon; she's a DEAR. Now that the job for you is settled--"

"Eh?" said Lightener.

Hilda smiled at him and amended herself. "Now that a very GOOD job for you is settled, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. First thing, I'm invited to the wedding, and so is mother, and so are some other folks.

I'll see to that. It isn't going to be any justice-of-the-peace wedding, either. It's going to be in the church, and there'll be enough folks there to make it read right in the paper."

"I'm afraid Ruth wouldn't care for that," said Bonbright, dubiously. "I know she wouldn't."

"She's got to start off RIGHT as your wife, Bon. The start's everything. You want your friends to know her and receive her, don't you? Of course you do. I'll round up the folks and have them there. It will be sort of romantic and interesting, and a bully send off for Ruth if it's done right. It 'll make her quite the rage. You'll see.

...That's what I'm going to do--in spite of your mother. Your wife will be received and invited every place that _I_ am....Maybe your mother can run the dowagers, but I'll bet a penny I can handle the young folks." In that moment she looked exceedingly like her father.

"HILDA!" her mother exclaimed again. "You must consider Mrs. Foote. We don't want to have any unpleasantness over this...."

"We've got it already," said Hilda, "and the only way is to--go the limit."

Lightener slammed the desk with his fist. "Right!" he said. "If we meddle at all we've got to go the whole distance. Either stay out altogether or go in over our heads.... But how about this girl, Hilda, does she belong?"

"She's decently educated. She has sweet manners. She's brighter than two-thirds of us. She'll fit in all right. Don't you worry about her."

"Young man," growled Lightener, "why couldn't you have fallen in love with my daughter and saved all this fracas?"

Bonbright was embarra.s.sed, but Hilda came to his rescue. "Because I didn't want him to," she said. "You wouldn't have MADE me marry him, would you?"

"PROBABLY not," said her father, with a rueful grin.

"I'm going to take charge of her," said Hilda. "We'll show your mother, Bon."

"You're--mighty good," said Bonbright, chokingly.

"I'm going to see her the first thing in the morning. You see. I'll fix things with her. When I explain everything to her she'll do just as I want her to."

Mrs. Lightener was troubled; tears stood in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Bonbright. I--I suppose a boy has the right to pick out his own wife, but it's too bad you couldn't have pleased your mother.... Her heart must ache to-night."

"I'm afraid," said Bonbright, slowly, "that it doesn't ache the way you mean, Mrs. Lightener."

"It's a hard place to put us. We're meddling. It doesn't seem the right thing to come between mother and son."

"You're not," said Hilda. "Mrs. Foote's sn.o.bbishness came between them."

"HILDA!"

"That's just what it is. Ruth is just as nice as she is or anybody else. She ought to be glad she's getting a daughter like Ruth. You'd be....And we can't sit by and see Bon and his wife STARVE, can we? We can't fold our hands and let Mrs. Foote make Ruth unhappy. It's cruel, that's what it is, and nothing else. When Ruth is Bon's wife she has the right to be treated as his wife should be. Mrs. Foote has no business trying to humiliate her and Bon--and she sha'n't."

"I suppose you're right, dear. I KNOW you're right.... But I'm thinking how I'd feel if it were YOU."

"You'd never feel like Mrs. Foote, mother. If I made up my mind to marry a man out of dad's office--no matter what his job was, if he was all right himself--you wouldn't throw me out of the house and set out to make him and me as unhappy as you could. You aren't a sn.o.b."

"No," said Mrs. Lightener, "I shouldn't."

Malcolm Lightener, interrupted. "Now you've both had your say," he said, "and you seem to have decided the thing between you. I felt kind of that way, myself, but I wanted to know about you folks. What you say GOES....Now clear out; I want to talk business to Bonbright."

Hilda gave Bonbright her hand again. "I'm glad," she said, simply. "I know you'll be very happy."

"And I'll do what I can, boy," said Mrs. Lightener

Bonbright was moved as he had never been moved before by kindliness and womanliness. "Thank you.... Thank you," he said, tremulously. "I--you don't know what this means to me. You've--you've put a new face on the whole future...."

"Clear out," said Malcolm Lightener.

Hilda made a little grimace at him in token that she flouted his authority, and she and her mother said good night and retired from the room.

"Now," said Malcolm Lightener.

Bonbright waited.

"I'm going to give you a job, but it won't be any private-office job. I don't know what you're good for. Probably not much. Don't get it into your head I'm handing a snap to you, because I'm not. If you're not worth what I pay you you'll get fired. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"If you stick you'll learn something. Not the kind of rubbish you've been sopping up in your own place. I run a business, not a museum of antiquity. You'll have to work. Think you can?"

"I've wanted to. They wouldn't let me."

"Um!...You'll get dirt on your hands....Most likely you'll be running Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, one of these days. This thing won't last. Your father'll have to come around....I only hope he lets you stay with me long enough to teach you some business sense and something about running a plant. I'll pay you enough to support you and this girl of yours--but you'll earn it. When you earn more you'll get it...Sounds reasonable."

"I--I can't thank you enough."

"Report for work day after to-morrow, then. You're a man out of a job.

You can't afford honeymoons. I'll let you have the day off to-morrow, but next morning you be in my office when the whistle blows. I always am."

"Yes, sir."

"Where are you going to live? Got any money?"

"I don't know where we shall live. Maybe we'd better find a place to board for a while. I've got a hundred dollars or so."

"Board!...Huh! n.o.body's got any business boarding when they're married.

Wife has too much time on her hands. Nothing to do. Especially at the start of things your wife'll need to be busy. Keep her from getting notions....I'll bet the percentage of divorces among folks that board is double that it is among folks that keep house. Bound to be....You get you a decent flat and furnish it. Right off. After you get married you and your wife pick out the furniture. That's what I'm giving you the day off to-morrow for. You can furnish a little flat--the kind you can afford, for five hundred dollars.... You're not a millionaire now.

You're a young fellow with a fair job and a moderate salary that you've got to live on. ...Better let your wife handle it. She's used to it and you're not. She'll make one dollar go as far as you would make ten."

"Yes, sir."