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66 and cribbage and chess—they had always been good comrades) he had fallen into the habit of turning to her every morning and inquiring, "Coming, Connie?"

This morning, en route to the office he left her seated in the automobile while he did an errand which would keep him, he thought, about ten minutes. He was back in three, and Constance, who hadn't dared risk shedding a tear in the room which she shared with Adelaide, but had thought herself quite safe in the back corner of the limousine, had been found by her father shielding with one hand her closed eyes, which when she uncovered and opened them were swimming with unmistakable tears! She blushed crimson. Her father hated to have anybody around him who was unhappy or discontented. His praise of her even temper had been the one cherished treasure of which the years hadn't robbed her. To lose that would leave her jewel-box pitifully empty.

Her father was a kind of god to Constance. She worshiped him. Always had. That's why she endured cribbage and chess. She wouldn't have been hired to play either game with anybody else. But if she couldn't make her father proud, she could at least make him comfortable—soothe him, fit him like his arm-chair. And now he had discovered her in tears!