a bit haggard. But she brightened when she saw Peter. She came in softly and happily and kissed him sweetly. He held her with the clutch of a man submersed in the troubles of the world, hanging on to a sweet fragment of sanity. Norma responded to him for a minute and then put him back gently. She dropped into a chair opposite him and put her head back listlessly.

"Been rough," she said.

"Rough?" he growled. Somehow he could not grasp the notion that anything could be rough to a person who had money, either potential or actual, at the fingertips. Rough to Peter Mansfield meant the constant search for a factor that he could not fathom.

"Pappy is a smooth, sharp operator," said Norma. "He's been manipulating strings, people, and corporations so long that he does it naturally. He and that lily-livered investment genius of his cut off my drawing account like turning off a water faucet, but they couldn't block my handling of my own personal stock. I took a flier in the market, Peter, before they got there. In fact," she chuckled, "I knew what they'd do, so I started to sell short before they got into the game. Then, the pair of scheming scoundrels didn't cheat fair." Norma's smile faded into anger. "Instead of running the stock down so I'd take a large loss, they bought like madmen and made it rise so I had to damn near lose my scanties covering my short sale. I almost got even by dumping the block of one stock, and it must've cost pappy plenty. A hell of a lot more than just tossing the money away. But I did get out with a half-million or so. Peter, will you take it—for me? For—us?"

"But—what does that leave you with?"

Norma got up out of her seat and came across the small room to snuggle down in his lap. "It leaves me with a hundred bucks a week—and you. I'll give up the hundred a week for you every hour of the day and night."

He had to grin. "Bad bet, darling. I'm no closer to being a howling success than I was a couple of weeks ago."

She kissed him generously. "I'd rather have you as my failure than see you as someone else's success."

"Dog in the manger."

"Don't you call me a b—!" she reddened.

Peter laughed. His laughter felt good inside of him, and he found a corner of his mind wondering why. He did not realize that he had been working much too hard, that his overworked brain and nervous system was almost in a state 

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