A little errand uptown kept her longer than she expected, but by the late afternoon she was back again at her desk, on which rested a small package which had been delivered by messenger for her.
"I beg you won't think as badly of me as it seems on the surface, Miss Dunlap," remarked Brainard, stopping beside her desk.
"I don't think badly of you," she answered in a low voice.

"You are not the only man who has been caught with a crowd of crooks who plan to leave him holding the bag." "Oh, it isn't that," he hastened, "I mean this Blanche Leblanc affair.
May I be frank with you ?" It was not the first time Constance had been made a confidante of the troubles of the heart, and yet there was something fascinating about having a man like Brainard consider her worthy of being trusted with what meant so much to him.
"I'm not altogether to blame." he went on slowly.

"The estrangement between my wife and myself came long before that little affair.

It began over--well--over what they call a serious difference in temperament.

You know a man--an ambitious man--needs a partner, a woman who can use the social position that money gives not alone for pleasure but as a means of advancing the partnership.