There are some marriages that flow along as smoothly as the surface of a broad and unruffled river. There are others that seem balanced upon a dynamite barrel waiting for the slightest friction to blow them into bits. The marriage of Carmelita, now a year old, oscillated between the two extremes. They had spent the year in their "bird-cage" in Greenwich Village.
As far as business and his uncle was concerned it had been a prosperous, happy year for Dudley. He had gone back to work after his marriage with but one idea in his mind—to make a fortune by as rapid strides as possible in order to give Carmelita the luxuries which he was sure such an exquisite creature as his wife deserved and which he was still compelled to refuse her. After six months or more without a backsliding on Dudley's part, Sanford Drake had been forced to conclude that his nephew was in earnest. Of late the old man had been entrusting his hard-working subordinate with more responsibilities and Dudley even had visions of a partnership within a
