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Mrs Mortimer slowly raised her head and looked at her husband

"Leroy, are you leefully "I can irl in New York--if I want to And at the saant, the most cold-blooded, selfish, purse-proud, inflated nincompoop that ever sat at the head of a director's table O-ho! Now you're staring, Leila I can do it; I can ot a hundred ways to square that cheque, and each separate way is a winner"

He rose, shook out the creases in his trousers, and adjusted the squat, gold fob which orna waistcoat

"So you'll fix it, won't you, Leila?" he said, apparently oblivious that he had expressed himself as able to adjust theand satisfactory ered aleer; but she paid him no attention, and he took himself off, confident that her sulkiness could not result in anything unpleasant to anybody except herself

Nor did it, as far as he could see The days brought no noticeable change in his wife's deh, though it did occur to Mortirateful beggar!" he thought bitterly; "he's toadying to Belwether now I can't do anything more for him, so I don't interest hirieved air in Plank's presence, or the meeker demeanour of a martyr, sentimentally misunderstood, but patient under the affliction

Then there ca the few days he spent circling tentatively and apprehensively around his wife he learned enough to know that there was nothing to be had from her at present No doubt the money she raised to placate Plank--if she had placated him in that fashion--was a strain on her resources, whatever those resources were

One thing was certain: Plank had not reainst his balance, if indeed, as Mortimer feared, the bank itself had not communicated with Plank as soon as the cheque was presented for payment Therefore Plank must have been placated by Leila; how, Mortimer was satisfied not to know

"Some of these days," he said to hi, and then there'll be a decent division of property, or--there'll be a divorce" But, as usual, Mortimer found such practices more attractive in theory than in execution, and he was really quite contented to go on as things were going, if somebody would see that he had some money occasionally