Virginia, who was sitting on the sofa, having become interested in a cabinet full of curios close by, looked up with a smile.  Encouragingly she said: 

“Don’t worry, Jimmie, your chance will come just as Mr. Stafford’s did.”

“Fine chance I’ve got,” he growled; “third assistant shipping clerk in a wholesale grocery.  Why, the manager of the department only gets thirty and he’s been with the house twenty-six years.”

“That’s a sweet outlook for me, I must say,” cried Fanny in dismay.  “If it takes a man twenty-six years to work up to thirty, I suppose you’ll be getting eighteen eleven years from the third of next January.”

Jimmie looked closely at both girls.  He was not quite sure if they were making fun of him.  Apparently satisfied that, on the contrary, they were in full sympathy with his troubles, he said: 

“I’m doing my best and no fellow can do more!  That’s what makes me so sore, I tell you.  Here I am slaving away for fourteen a week and he spends three hundred just for his rooms.  I wonder how many rooms he gets for that?”

“I think it’s twelve and four baths,” said Fanny.

“Four baths!” he gasped.  “What in God’s name can a bachelor do with four baths?”

“Is there any reason he shouldn’t have them if he can pay for them?” demanded Fanny quietly.

“But what good are they to him,” insisted her fiance.  “No matter how much money he has, he can’t be in more than one tub at a time.  I suppose he uses ’em Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday—­and keeps the favorite for the special splash on Sunday.”

Virginia looked at him scornfully.

“Do you realize,” she exclaimed, “that Mr. Stafford has servants and that he has friends come to stay with him occasionally?”

Abashed, the young man put his hands in his pockets and began to whistle.  He stood in considerable awe of Virginia.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought o’ that,” he said mildly.

Flushing with vexation at his making such remarks, Fanny said to him in a quick undertone: 

“Take my advice and do think—­once in a while.  And get rid of that temper, too.  For the first time in our lives we’re invited to dine with a rich man and I, for one, want to enjoy it.”

Jimmie opened his mouth as if to make some retort, when suddenly Oku re-appeared carrying a tray in which was a tempting spread of cocktails, cigarettes and cigars.

CHAPTER VII

While the butler was serving the cocktails, Virginia roamed through the splendid suite of rooms, taking keen delight in examining at closer range one and all of the art treasures they contained.  She went into silent ecstasies before a Da Vinci, a Rembrandt and other fine examples of the old masters, and was held spellbound by the beautiful modelling of a piece of modern French sculpture.  She was not enough of a connoisseur to be able to estimate each picture, each curio at its true value, but she knew enough to realize that it was a very valuable collection and one which very few persons were privileged to view.  The books with their fine bindings were likewise a source of particular delight.