papers and accountbooks before him.
He pointed her to her old chair at the end of his desk and leaned back
in his own, looking at her with satisfaction. How handsome she was
growing!

"I'm still chasing the elusive metal, Thea,"--he pointed to the papers
before him,--"I'm up to my neck in mines, and I'm going to be a rich man
some day."

"I hope you will; awfully rich. That's the only thing that counts." She
looked restlessly about the consulting-room. "To do any of the things one
wants to do, one has to have lots and lots of money."

Dr. Archie was direct. "What's the matter? Do you need some?"

Thea shrugged. "Oh, I can get along, in a little way." She looked
intently out of the window at the arc streetlamp that was just beginning
to sputter. "But it's silly to live at all for little things," she added
quietly. "Living's too much trouble unless one can get something big out
of it."

Dr. Archie rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, dropped his chin
on his clasped hands and looked at her. "Living is no trouble for little
people, believe me!" he exclaimed. "What do you want to get out of it?"

"Oh--so many things!" Thea shivered.

"But what? Money? You mentioned that. Well, you can make money, if you
care about that more than anything else." He nodded prophetically above
his interlacing fingers.

"But I don't. That's only one thing. Anyhow, I couldn't if I did." She
pulled her dress lower at the neck as if she were suffocating. "I only
want impossible things," she said roughly. "The others don't interest
me."

Dr. Archie watched her contemplatively, as if she were a beaker full of
chemicals working. A few years ago, when she used to sit there, the
light from under his green lampshade used to fall full upon her broad
face and yellow pigtails. Now her face was in the shadow and the line of
light fell below her bare throat, directly across her bosom. The
shrunken white organdie rose and fell as if she were struggling to be
free and to break out of it altogether. He felt that her heart must be
laboring heavily in there, but he was afraid to touch her; he was,
indeed. He had never seen her like this before. Her hair, piled high on
her head, gave her a commanding look, and her eyes, that used to be so
inquisitive, were stormy.

"Thea," he said slowly, "I won't say that you can have everything you
want--that means having nothing, in reality. But if you decide what it
is you want most, YOU CAN GET IT." His eye