She had risen, and now walked angrily out of the room.

“Well, you get it then,” he said grimly, though in a modified tone of voice.

As usual, the table was one short that evening.

The next morning he had cooled down considerably, and later the ticket was duly secured, though it did not heal matters.  He did not mind giving his family a fair share of all that he earned, but he did not like to be forced to provide against his will.

“Did you know, mother,” said Jessica another day, “the Spencers are getting ready to go away?”

“No.  Where, I wonder?”

“Europe,” said Jessica.  “I met Georgine yesterday and she told me.  She just put on more airs about it.”

“Did she say when?”

“Monday, I think.  They’ll get a notice in the papers again—­they always do.”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Hurstwood consolingly, “we’ll go one of these days.”

Hurstwood moved his eyes over the paper slowly, but said nothing.

“‘We sail for Liverpool from New York,’” Jessica exclaimed, mocking her acquaintance. “’Expect to spend most of the “summah” in France,’—­vain thing.  As If it was anything to go to Europe.”

“It must be if you envy her so much,” put in Hurstwood.

It grated upon him to see the feeling his daughter displayed.

“Don’t worry over them, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurstwood.

“Did George get off?” asked Jessica of her mother another day, thus revealing something that Hurstwood had heard nothing about.

“Where has he gone?” he asked, looking up.  He had never before been kept in ignorance concerning departures.

“He was going to Wheaton,” said Jessica, not noticing the slight put upon her father.

“What’s out there?” he asked, secretly irritated and chagrined to think that he should be made to pump for information in this manner.

“A tennis match,” said Jessica.

“He didn’t say anything to me,” Hurstwood concluded, finding it difficult to refrain from a bitter tone.

“I guess he must have forgotten,” exclaimed his wife blandly.  In the past he had always commanded a certain amount of respect, which was a compound of appreciation and awe.  The familiarity which in part still existed between himself and his daughter he had courted.  As it was, it did not go beyond the light assumption of words.  The tone was always modest.  Whatever had been, however, had lacked affection, and now he saw that he was losing track of their doings.  His knowledge was no longer intimate.  He sometimes saw them at table, and sometimes did not.  He heard of their doings occasionally, more often not.  Some days he found that he was all at sea as to what they were talking about—­ things they had arranged to do or that they had done in his absence.  More affecting was the feeling that there were little things going on of which he no longer heard.  Jessica