“He had dropped all pretence of any work that was really worth while, and had turned his art into a business.  He became a real estate gambler and an architect, all in one.  He got to speculating in land—­and what he built on it he didn’t care, so long as it produced the cash.  Oh, it wasn’t all at once, you know, you can’t strangle the soul of a man in a hurry—­but by the time your sister died, the buildings Joe was putting up were just about as common and cheap as the average play on Broadway—­crowd pleasers.  He had lost his nerve.  Everything had to be popular.  Play safe each time, on the same old flats that every woman seems to love.  A woman is conservative.  To have and to hold, to get and keep, to stand pat with both eyes shut—­that’s the average woman in this town.  And Joe had to play her.

“And because he still had a soul in him—­and a stomach that turned—­he began to vary the dulness of it by becoming sensational.  He did daring things, cheap daring things—­no real originality in it, but it took on and caught the eye.  Pictures of his buildings got into the real estate pages of the Sunday papers.  He hired a press agent then and went after the publicity.  And all I need to tell you of that, is that just the other day the press agent came into the office with a scheme for a string of buildings up on the new part of the Drive.  They were to be patriotic—­see?—­named after the presidents of our country—­cheap and showy terra-cotta—­main effect red, white and blue.”  Ethel leaned back with a little gasp.  But Nourse added relentlessly, “And Joe didn’t turn him down.”

She stiffened sharply in her chair and looked at Nourse with indignant eyes, as though he alone were to blame.

“You mean to say my husband could even consider such a plan?”

“Why not?  There’s money in it—­big—­the publicity value would be immense.  It would make his name a joke of course, with every architect in town—­but think of all the talk, free ads!  And that means tenants pouring in—­and money!  Don’t you like it?  She would have—­your sister would, I mean.  It was just such a scheme on a smaller scale that made her send for me one day and tell me I could keep hands off or else get out of the office.  I gave in because I couldn’t go—­I couldn’t quite make up my mind to the fact that Joe was done for.  So I stuck—­and she tried to break me—­again and again.  But Joe, for all the change in him, had a loyal streak not only for me but for all he had once meant to do.  Even still he kept saying he’d just put it off, and that when he’d got the money he’d turn back and we’d begin.

“And when his wife died, I began to have hope.  The only blot on her funeral was the fact that you were there—­and you told me you intended to stay.  Her sister—­the same story.  I soon shook that off, however—­for I saw the way he turned to his work as a refuge from his grief for her.  I had my chance and I took it.  When his mind was dull and numb I began to slip in changes.  And each change meant better work and less easy money.  And soon I was making headway fast; for Joe had never cared for money for himself, but only for her—­and she was dead.  So he let our profits go down and down, while what we did got more worth doing.  It even began to take hold of him—­of the old Joe that was still there.