Broken to the Plow. Charles Caldwell Dobie

them with the oysters.

      Starratt knitted his brows. "Well, why not?" was his mental calculation.

      Brauer ordered two more pints of beer.

      Starratt had leaned at first toward keeping his business venture a secret from Helen. But in the end a boyish eagerness to sun himself in the warmth of her surprise unlocked his reserve.

      "I've quit Ford-Wetherbee," he said, quietly, that night, as she was seating herself after bringing on the dessert.

      He had never seen such a startled look flash across her face.

      "What! Did you have trouble?"

      He decided swiftly not to give her the details. He didn't want her to think that any outside influence had pushed him into action.

      "Oh no! … " he drawled, lightly. "I've been thinking of leaving for some time. Working for another person doesn't get you anywhere."

      He could see that she was puzzled, perhaps a little annoyed. Last night in a malicious moment she had been quite ready to sneer at her husband's inactivity, but now, with the situation a matter of practice rather than theory, Starratt felt that she was having her misgivings. A suggestion of a frown hovered above her black eyebrows.

      "You can't mean that you're going into business!" she returned, as she passed him a dish of steaming pudding.

      There was a suggestion of last night's scorn in her incredulity.