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r face. "You may not believe it, but I have a conscience." Absently, "A curious sort of a conscience--one that might become very troublesome, I'm afraid--in some circumstances." Instantly the fine side of David Hull's nature was to the fore--the dominant side, for at the first appeal it always responded. "So have I, Jen," said he. "I think our similarity in that respect is what draws me so strongly to you. And it's that that makes me hope I can win you. Oh, Jen--there's so much to be done in the world--and you and I could have such a splendid happy life doing our share of it." She was once more looking at him with an encouraging interest. But she said, gently: "Let's not talk about that any more to-day, Davy." "But you'll think about it?" urged he. "Yes," said she. "Let's be friends--and--and see what happens." Hull strolled up to the house with her, but refused to stop for lunch. He pleaded an engagement; but it was one that could--and in other circumstances would--have been broken by telephone. His real reason for hurrying away was fear lest Jane should open out on the subject of Victor Dorn with her father, and, in her ignorance of the truth as to the situation, should implicate him. She found her father already at home and having a bowl of crackers and milk in a shady corner of the west veranda. He was chewing in the manner of those whose teeth are few and not too secure. His brows were knitted and he looked as if not merely joy but everything except disagreeable sensation had long since fled his life beyond hope of return--an air not uncommon among the world's successful men. However, at sight of his lovely young daughter his face cleared somewhat and he shot at her from under his wildly and savagely narrowed eyebrows a glance of admiration and tenderness--a quaint expression for those cold, hard features. Everyone spoke of him behind his back as "Old Morton Hastings." In fact, he was barely past sixty, was at an age at which city men of the modern style count themselves young and even entertain--not without reason--hope of being desired of women for other than purely practical reasons. He was born on a farm--was born with an aversion to physical exertion as profound as was his passion for mental exertion. We never shall know how much of its progress the world owes to the physically lazy, mentally tireless men. Those are they who, to save themselves physical exertion, have devised all m
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