"It's glorious, Nan!" he exclaimed.

"Your coming makes it perfect, Jim," she answered, tenderly, and turning to the chauffeur said:

"Drive for an hour before going to the house, Collins."

The chauffeur tipped his cap and the throbbing machine shot around a curve and swept along the river's edge down the green carpeted valley which stretches out for miles below the ramparts of the great chateau on the mountain-side above.

"There's the house, Jim!" Nan cried, pointing to the heights on the left.

Stuart could not suppress an exclamation of delight.

"Magnificent!" he said, with enthusiasm.

As the river made a graceful curve the great building swept into full view--a stunning pile of marble three hundred feet long, its tower piercing the turquoise sky in solemn grandeur. The stone parapet, on which its front wall was built, rose in massive strength a hundred feet from the ledge in the granite cliff before touching the first line of the white stones of the house itself.

At the end a formal garden had been built on the foundations of masonry which cost a hundred thousand dollars.

"What a background that row of live oaks make behind the garden!" he exclaimed.

"Don't they?" she answered. "You would hardly believe it, but we planted every one of those trees."

"Nonsense! They must be two feet in diameter."

"More; not one of them is less than three. We moved a hundred of them from the woods, without breaking the dirt from their roots--built special machinery to do it. I think Cal is prouder of those trees than he is of the house."

For an hour the car swept like a spirit over the miles of smooth macadam private roads Bivens had built. At each graceful turn his wonder increased at the luxurious outlay of millions which the little man had spent to gratify a whim.

From each hilltop, as the huge gleaming castle came into view from a new angle, revealing its marvellous beauty, he thought with a touch of pity of the shambling figure of the stricken man limping through its halls helpless, lonely, miserable. What strange pranks Fate plays with the mighty as well as the lowly! So frail was the broken body now he did not dare risk a cold by taking a ride with his wife.

The machine turned suddenly up a hill and glided through two iron gates opening on the lawn and the great white chateau loomed before them in a flash of blinding beauty. Stuart caught his breath.

Turning to Nan he shook his head slowly:

"Don't you like it?" she laughed.

"I was just wondering."

"At what?"

"Whether this is the Republic for which our struggling fathers fought and died? America you know, Nan, is the tall rude youth who saw a vision, made his way into the wilderness, slept on the ground, fought with hunger and wild beasts and grew strong by the labour of his right arm. It would be a strange thing if all he has learned is to crawl back to where he started and build a castle exactly like the one from which the tyrants drove him in the Old World."

"What a strange fellow you are, Jim." Her answer carried with it a touch of resentment. "This house is mine, mine--not America's--please remember that. Let the future American take of himself!"

"Certainly, I understand," he answered quickly, as the car stopped under the vaulted porte-cochere. "You wouldn't be a woman if you didn't feel that way. All right; I'm in your hands. To the devil with the future American!"

"That's better!" she laughed.

Stuart shook hands with Bivens and was shocked to find him so weak.

The little man held his hand with a lingering wistfulness as he looked into his friend's strong face.

"You don't know how rich you are, Jim," he said, feebly, "with this hand that grips like iron. I'd give millions to feel my heart beat like yours to-day."

"You'll get better down here," Stuart answered, cheerfully.

"I'm trying it anyhow," he said listlessly. "Make yourself at home, old boy. This house is my pride. I want Nan to show you every nook and corner in it. I wish I could trot around with you, but I can't."

"As soon as you've changed your clothes," Nan said, familiarly, "come down to the library and I'll show you around."

Stuart followed the man assigned as his valet to the electric elevator and in a minute stepped out on the fourth floor. He observed with a smile that his room number was 157.

"The idea of living in a huge hotel and calling it a home!" he mused, with grim humour. "Room 157; great Scott!"

His hostess showed him first the library. The magnificent room contained more than forty thousand volumes, bound in hand-tooled morocco.

"The funny thing, of course," Nan whispered, "is that Cal has never read one of these exquisitely bound books."

"Why on earth did he make this room the most stately and beautiful one in the house?"

"Maybe he didn't!" she laughed. "I'm going to give you a privilege no mere man has ever enjoyed in this house before--I am going to show you my own rooms. Will you appreciate the honour?"

The man answered with a bantering smile.

"If I live to tell the story!"

When the tour of inspection had been completed she led him to her own suite, which was located in the south-western corner, overlooking the magnificent formal gardens with their artificial lake, fountains, statuary and a wilderness of flowers, and farther on over the beautiful valleys of the Swannanoa and the French Broad rivers. Beyond the river valleys rose range after range of mountains until the last dim peaks were lost in the clouds.

The magnificence of her bed-room was stunning. Stuart rubbed his eyes in amazement.

The bedstead seemed a thing of life--so elaborate and wonderful was its art. Built of massive ebony with the most remarkable ivory carvings set in its gleaming black surface, artists, as many as could touch the material, had worked two years on the carving alone. The allegorical pictures cut into the broad band of ivory which ran around the frame had required the time of four art-workmen for eighteen months.

Stuart stood fascinated.

"You see that magnificent piece of ivory on the head, Jim?" she asked, with sparkling eyes.

"The most massive solid piece I ever saw!" he exclaimed. "I never dreamed the elephant had ever lived with such a tusk."

"We found him at last!" Nan cried, with pride. "It took the time of fourteen hunters in Africa for seven months."

"I can easily believe it," Stuart answered. "Ludwig of Bavaria surely never dreamed anything like this."

"The walls you see are panelled in Louis XV style, permitting the most elaborate carvings which I had heavily guilded on backgrounds of white enamel, but the thing I love best about this panelling, is not the panel at all--it's the rich purple and gold Genoese velvet. I had it made by a noted firm in Lyons. Don't you think it exquisite?"

"If I ever get rich I'll have a piece of it for the collar of my coat."

"I got my painters from Paris to do the ceilings. They worked very quickly, but they knew how to charge. The window curtains, you see, are of the same material as the purple and gold velvet in the panels, while the under curtains are hand-woven of Brussels net and interwoven with silk. The wardrobe, little washstand and dressing table are of ebony and ivory, the chairs, of solid ivory inlaid with gold and ebony, were all made to match the bedstead."

Stuart looked at his hostess curiously.