heart out of my body for her."

"Do you know anything about the kind of girl she is? The life she leads?
The things and people that make life for her? The sort of world she
lives in?"

"Not very much."

"I suppose not. Well, son, I make up my mind quickly about people. You
strike me as something of a man. But I'm afraid you haven't got the
backing to carry out this contract."

"We are prepared to show a reasonable income," declared Judge Enderby,
"with a juster prospect of permanence than--well, for example, than Wall
Street affords, at present."

"Possibly. Of course I could find our young friend here an ornamental
and useless position in my office--"

"No, thank you," said the Tyro.

"No. I'd supposed not. Well, Mr. Smith, to keep that amiable young lady
running at the rate of speed which she considers legal, trims fifty
thousand a year down so fine that I could put the remainder in the plate
on New Year's Sunday without a pang."

"Fifty thousand!" gasped the Tyro.

"Oh, the modern American girl is a high-priced luxury. Are you worth a
million dollars?"

"No."

"See any prospect of getting a million?"

"Not the slightest."

"Well, do you think it would be fair to a girl like Cecily, with an
upbringing which--"

"Which imbecility and snobbery have combined to make the worst
imaginable," cut in Judge Enderby.

"I don't say you're wrong. But it's what she's had. That kind of life is
no longer a luxury to her. It's a necessity."

"Twaddle!" observed the judge.

"Have it your own way," allowed the father patiently. "But there's the
situation," he added to the Tyro. "What are you going to do with it?"

The Tyro looked him between the eyes. "The best I can," said he, and
walked away.

"Now, Enderby," said the great financier, following him with his glance,
"it's up to the boy and the girl."

"You've killed him off."

"Not if I know Cecily. She's got a good deal of her mother in her. I've
always known it would be once and forever with her. And I'm afraid this
boy is the once."

"It might be worse," suggested the lawyer dryly.

"Yes. I've made inquiries. But what can a man know about things?" The
great man's regard drifted out into the gray distance of the open sea.
"Ah, if I had her mother back again!"

"The boy is fine and honorable and manful, Wayne," said the old lawyer.
"To be sure, you'll never make a Wall Street dollar-hound out of him--"

"Heaven knows I don't want to."

"But he'll