igarette.
She said:

"He's asleep."

"He's all right for the next few days," said Charlton. "After that--I
don't know. I'm very doubtful."

Jane was depressed, but not so depressed as she would have been had not
her father so long looked like death and so often been near dying.

"Stay at home until I see how this is going to turn out. Telephone your
sister to be within easy call. But don't let her come here. She's not
fit to be about an ill person. The sight of her pulling a long, sad
face might carry him off in a fit of rage."

Jane observed him with curiosity in the light streaming from the front
hall. "You're a very practical person aren't you?" she said.

"No romance, no idealism, you mean?"

"Yes."

He laughed in his plain, healthy way. "Not a frill," said he. "I'm
interested only in facts. They keep me busy enough."

"You're not married, are you?"

"Not yet. But I shall be as soon as I find a woman I want."

"IF you can get her."

"I'll get her, all right," replied he. "No trouble about that. The
woman I want'll want me."

"I'm eager to see her," said Jane. "She'll be a queer one."

"Not necessarily," said he. "But I'll make her a queer one before I
get through with her--queer, in my sense, meaning sensible and useful."

"You remind me so often of Victor Dorn, yet you're not at all like him."

"We're in the same business--trying to make the human race fit to
associate with. He looks after the minds; I look after the bodies.
Mine's the humbler branch of the business, perhaps--but it's equally
necessary, and it comes first. The chief thing that's wrong with human
nature is bad health. I'm getting the world ready for Victor."

"You like him?"

"I worship him," said Charlton in his most matter-of-fact way.

"Yet he's just the opposite of you. He's an idealist."

"Who told you that?" laughed Charlton. "He's the most practical,
sensible man in this town. You people think he's a crank because he
isn't crazy about money or about stepping round on the necks of his
fellow beings. The truth is, he's got a sense of proportion--and a
sense of humor--and an idea of a rational happy life. You're still
barbarians, while he's a civilized man. Ever seen an ignorant yap jeer
when a neat, clean, well-dressed person passed by? Well, you people
jeering at Victor Dorn are like that yap."

"I agree with you," said Jane hastily and earnestly.

"No, you don't," replied Charlton, tossing aw