“Let’s get down to business,” Lightener said.  “Tell ’em, Bonbright.”

“I’m going to marry Ruth Frazer to-morrow noon,” he said, boldly.

Mrs. Lightener was amazed, then disappointed, for she had come to hope strongly that she would have this boy for a son.  She liked him, and trusted in his possibilities.  She believed he would be a husband to whom she could give her daughter with an easy heart. ...  Hilda felt a momentary shock of surprise, but it passed quickly.  Like her father, she was sudden to pounce upon the concealed meaning of patent facts—­and she had spent the morning with Ruth.  She was first to speak.

“So you’ve decided to throw me over,” she said, with a smile. ...  “I don’t blame you, Bonbright.  She’s a dear.”

“But who is she?” asked Mrs. Lightener.  “I seem to have heard the name, but I don’t remember meeting her.”

“She was my secretary,” said Bonbright.  “She’s a stenographer in Mr. Lightener’s office now.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Lightener, and there was dubiety in her voice.

“Exactly,” said Lightener.

“Mother!” exclaimed Hilda.  “Weren’t you a stenographer in the office where dad worked?”

“It isn’t that,” said Mrs. Lightener.  “I wasn’t thinking about the girl nor about Bonbright.  I was thinking of his mother.”

“That’s why he’s here,” said Lightener.  “The Family touched off a mess of fireworks.  Mrs. Foote refuses to have anything to do with the girl if Bonbright marries her.  Promised to see nobody else did, too.  Isn’t that it, Bonbright?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like to mix in a family row...”

“You’ve got to, dad,” said Hilda.  “Of course Bonbright couldn’t stand that.”  They understood her to mean by that the Foote family’s position in the matter.  “He couldn’t stand it. ...  I expect you and mother are disappointed.  You wanted me to marry Bonbright, myself...”

“Hilda!” Mrs. Lightener’s voice was shocked.

“Oh, Bonbright and I talked it over the night we met.  Don’t be a bit alarmed.  I’m not being especially forward. ...  We’ve got to do something.  What does Bon want us to do?”

“He wants me to give him a job.”

She turned to Bonbright.  “They turned you out?”

“I turned myself out,” he said.

She nodded understandingly.  “You would,” she said, approvingly.  “What kind of a job can you give him, dad?”

“H’m.  That’s settled, is it?  What do you think, mother?”

“Why, dear, he’s got to support his wife,” said Mrs. Lightener.

Malcolm Lightener permitted the granite of his face to relax in a rueful smile.  “I called you folks in to get your advice—­not to have you run the whole shebang.”

“We’re going to run it, dad. ...Don’t you like Ruth Frazer?”

“I like her.  She seems to be a nice, intelligent girl. ...Cries all over a man’s office. ...”