But it was the answer he had made that committed him irrevocably to his future course: 

“Perhaps I am.  You don’t know everything.”

He had felt a sense of fatality bound up in these words of defiant pretense, once they had escaped him...a fatality which the blazing contempt of his wife’s retort had emphasized.  Even now his cheeks burned with the memory of that unleashed insult: 

“What can you do?”

No, there was no turning back now.  His own self-esteem could not deny so clear-cut a challenge.

He called his assistant.  “I wish you’d go into the private office and see if Mr. Ford is at leisure,” he ordered.  “I want to have a talk with him.”

The youth came back promptly.  “He says for you to come,” was his brief announcement.

Fred Starratt stared a moment and, recovering himself, walked swiftly in upon his employer.  Mr. Ford was signing insurance policies.

“Well, Starratt,” he said, looking up smilingly, “what’s the good word?...  What’s new with you?”

Starratt squared himself desperately.  “Nothing...except I find it impossible to live upon my salary.”

Mr. Ford laid aside his pen.  “Oh, that’s unfortunate!...  Suppose you sit down and we’ll talk it over.”

Starratt dropped into the nearest seat.

Mr. Ford let his eyeglasses dangle from their cord.  He was not in the least disturbed.  Indeed, he seemed to be approaching the issue with unqualified pleasure.

“Now, Starratt, let’s get at the root of the trouble...  Of course you’re a reasonable man otherwise...”

Starratt smiled ironically.  A vivid remembrance of Hilmer’s words flashed over him.  His lip-curling disdain must have communicated itself to Mr. Ford, because that gentleman hesitated, cleared his throat, and began all over again.

“You’re a reasonable man, Starratt, and I know that you have the interest of the firm at heart.”

Starratt leaned back in his seat and listened, but he might have spared himself the pains.  Somehow he anticipated every word, every argument, before Mr. Ford had a chance to voice them.  Business conditions were uncertain, overhead charges extraordinarily increased, the loss ratio large and bidding fair to cut their bonus down to nothing.  Therefore ... well, of course, next year things might be different.  The firm was hoping that by next year they would be in a position to deal handsomely with those of their force who had been patient...  Mr. Ford did not stop there, he did not expect Starratt to take his word for anything.  He reached for a pencil and pad and he went into a mathematic demonstration to show just how near the edge of financial disaster the firm of Ford, Wetherbee & Co. had been pushed.  Starratt could not doubt the figures, and yet his eyes traveled instinctively to the bag of golf sticks in a convenient corner.  Somehow, nothing in either Ford’s argument or his sleek presence irritated