“It’s the strain,” he would conclude.  “She’s putting more into this venture of mine than she’s willing to admit...  After all, women are amazing...  They pull and cling at you and drag you back ... and then, all of a sudden, they take the bit in their teeth and you can’t hold them in...  Who would have thought that Helen...”

And here he would halt, overcome with the soft wonder of it.

Business began to pour in from Brauer and, frankly, Fred was disturbed.  He wasn’t sure of Brauer’s business scruples.

“I wonder if he’s promising these people rebates,” he said to Helen one day, following an avalanche of new risks.

“Well, you’ll know soon enough when he begins to collect the premiums,” she replied, indifferently.

“But I don’t want to wait until then...  They tell me this man Kendrick is getting awfully sore at losing so much of Hilmer’s business.  He’d like nothing better than to hop on to some irregularity in my methods and get me fired from the Exchange...  It takes a thief to catch one, you know.”

“Oh, why worry?” Helen almost snapped at him.  “If Brauer gets us into a mess we can always throw him out.”

Starratt’s eyes widened.  Where did Helen get this ruthless philosophy?  Had it always lain dormant in her, or was this business life already putting a ragged edge upon her finer perceptions?  But he made no answer.  He had never admitted to Helen that Brauer had insisted upon drawing up a hard-and-fast partnership agreement, and taking his note for half of the money advanced in the bargain.  It was one of the business secrets which he decided he would not share with anybody—­he had a childish wish to preserve some mystery in connection with his venture against the soft and dubious encroachments of his wife.

“Anyway,” Helen went on, “as soon as we get running smoothly we can split.  No doubt he’ll want to pull out when he sees that he can get along without us...  Just now he isn’t taking any chances.  He’s holding down his own job and letting us do all the work and the worrying...  Oh, he’s German, all right, from the ground up.”

Fred had often shared this same hope, although he had never voiced it.  When the time came, no doubt Brauer would eliminate himself—­for a consideration—­and set up his own office.  But it amazed him to find how swiftly and completely Helen had figured all these things out.  Had her mind always worked so coldly and logically under her rather indifferent surface?  He still wondered, too, at her efficiency.  Was this a product of her social service with the Red Cross during war times?...  Being a man, he couldn’t concede that a proper domestic training was a pretty good schooling in any direction.  He didn’t see any relationship between a perfectly baked apple pie and a neatly kept cash book.  He had expected his wife to fall down on the mechanical aspects of typewriting, but he forgot that she had been running