"The one joy of my life will be to gratify every reasonable wish of your body and soul."

"Yet the first reasonable wish I express, you refuse to consider."

"It would be suicide----"

"Oh, Jim, don't talk like a fool! Mr. Bivens says he would make you a millionaire in five years."

The blood suddenly rushed to Stuart's face, and the square jaws came together with a snap.

"That's very kind of Mr. Bivens, I'm sure. When I need his patronage, I'll take my place in line with other henchmen and ask for it. At present I'm paddling my own canoe."

Nan suddenly extended her hand.

"Good-night."

He attempted to draw her into his arms.

"Not like that, Nan."

She repulsed him and repeated her cold dismissal:

"Good-night."

"Nan, dear," he pleaded, "we've never parted in anger before. Of all the hours of my life this is one in which I--I--least dreamed of such a thing."

Without a word, she turned toward the stairs.

"Nan!" he called tenderly.

The proud white figure slowly mounted the first step. He seized his hat and coat and grasped the door, fumbling at the knob in rage.

A dress rustled and he turned, confronting Nan. Her face was scarlet and two tears were creeping down her checks. With a sob she threw herself into his arms.

"Forgive me, Jim!"

"Forgive me, dear, if I've seemed unreasonable," was the low answer.

"But you will think it over, won't you? just for my sake--just because I ask it--won't you?"

"Just because you ask it--yes, I will, dearest!"

He kissed her tenderly and walked home with a great sickening fear slowly creeping into his heart.

CHAPTER IV

MR. BIVENS CALLS

Stuart waked next morning with a sense of hopeless depression. He had intended to make an engagement with Nan to visit the little home. It was impossible to suggest it in the mood he had found her. What strange madness had come over the woman he loved? They had never discussed money before. Bivens was the only explanation.

He dressed himself mechanically and went down stairs. A letter was on the hall rack which had been sent by a messenger. He broke the seal with nervous haste. It was from Bivens asking him to call his office telephone at eleven o'clock.

He tore the note into tiny pieces, stepped into the parlour and threw them into the grate. He stood for a moment gazing into the glowing coals in brooding anger. Slowly he became conscious of music. Some one was playing an old-fashioned Southern melody, and the tenderest voice accompanied the piano. He walked to the door of the music-room.

It was Harriet.

As he listened, the frown died from his face and the anger melted out from his heart. The music ceased. Harriet looked up with a start.

"Oh, Jim, I didn't know you were there!"

"It was beautiful, little pal."

"Yes, I knew you'd like that piece. I heard you humming it one day.

That's why I got it."

"What a sweet voice you have, child, so clear, so deep and rich and full of feeling. I didn't know you could sing."

"I didn't either until I tried."

"You must study music," he said, with enthusiasm.

The girl clapped her hands and leaped to her feet, exclaiming:

"Will you be proud of me, Jim, if I can sing?"

"Indeed I will," was the earnest answer.

The laughing eyes grew serious as she slowly said:

"Then, I'll do my level best. I'm off--good-bye."

With a wave of her hand she was gone, and Stuart hurried to his office, whistling the old tune she had just sung.

What curious, sensitive things--these souls of ours! An idea enters and blackens the sky, makes sick the body, kills hope and faith. The soft strains of an old piece of music steals into the darkened spirit, the shadows lift, the sun shines, the heart beats with life and the world is new again.

On reaching his office on lower Broadway, Stuart rang Bivens's telephone, and the president of the American Chemical Company made an engagement to call at once.

Stuart would not have stooped to the trick of keeping his young millionaire visitor waiting, on imaginary business, but he was grateful for the timely call of a client who kept him in consultation for fifteen minutes while Bivens patiently waited his turn in the reception-room, his wealth and prestige all lost on the imperturbable office boy, who sat silently chewing gum and reading a serial.

The first view of Bivens was always unimpressive. He was short, thin, and looked almost frail at first glance. A second look gave the impression of wiry reserve force in his compact frame. His hair was jet black and thinning slightly on top which gave him the appearance of much greater age than he could really claim. His thin features were regular, and his face was covered with a thick black beard which he kept trimmed to a keen point on the chin. His most striking features were a high massive forehead, abnormally long for the size of his body, and a pair of piercing, bead-like black eyes. These eyes were seldom still, but when they rested on an object they fairly bored through it with their penetrating light.

He rarely spoke except to a purpose, and his manners were quiet, almost furtive. He had thus early in his career gained a nickname that was peculiarly significant in Wall Street. He was known as _The Weasel_.

His whole makeup, physical and mental, was curiously complex--a mixture of sobriety and greed, piety and cruelty, tenderness and indomitable will, simplicity of tastes with boundless ambition.

His friendship for Stuart and his deference to him personally and socially dated from their boyhood in North Carolina--and particularly from an incident which occurred in their college days. Bivens's father had been a notorious coward in the Confederate army and had at last deserted the service. A number of very funny stories about his actions in battle had become current everywhere. On Bivens's arrival at college, a particularly green freshman, Stuart had discovered a group of his classmates hazing him. They had forced the coward's son to mount a box and repeat to the crowd the funny stories about the "valour" of his father. The boy, scared half out of his wits, stood stammering and perspiring and choking with shame as he tried to obey his tormentors.