ton listened with profound enjoyment. Under the
spell of the music he relaxed, pushed out the footrest of the chair, and
lay back at ease, smoking dreamily. The cigar finished and his hands at
rest, his eyes closed of themselves. The music, now a crooning lullaby,
grew softer and slower, until his deep and regular breathing showed that
he was sound asleep. She stopped playing and sat watching him intently,
her violin in readiness to play again, if he should show the least sign
of waking, but there was no such sign. Freed from the tyranny of the
mighty brain which had been driving it so unmercifully, his body was
making up for many hours of lost sleep.

Assured that he was really asleep, Dorothy tip-toed to her father's
study and quietly went in.

"Daddy, Dick is asleep out there in the chair. What shall we do with
him?"

"Good work, Dottie Dimple. I heard you playing him to sleep--you almost
put me to sleep as well. I'll get a blanket and we'll put him to bed
right where he is."

"Dear old Dad," she said softly, sitting on the arm of his chair and
rubbing her cheek against his. "You always did understand, didn't you?"

"I try to, Kitten," he answered, pulling her ear. "Seaton is too good a
man to see go to pieces when it can be prevented. That is why I
signalled you to keep the talk off the company and his work. One of the
best lawyers I ever knew, a real genius, went to pieces that same way.
He was on a big, almost an impossible, case. He couldn't think of
anything else, didn't eat or sleep much for months. He won the case, but
it broke him. But he wasn't in love with a big, red-headed beauty of a
girl, and so didn't have her to fiddle him to sleep.

"Well, I'll go get the blanket," he concluded, with a sudden change in
his tone.

In a few moments he returned and they went into the living-room
together. Seaton lay in exactly the same position, only the regular
lifting of his powerful chest showing that he was alive.

"I think we had better...."

"Sh ... sh," interrupted the girl in an intense whisper. "You'll wake
him up, Daddy."

"Bosh! You couldn't wake him up with a club. His own name might rouse
him, particularly if you said it; no other ordinary sound would. I
started to say that I think we had better put him to bed on the
davenport. He would be more comfortable."

"But that would surely wake him. And he's so big...."

"Oh, no, it wouldn't, unless I drop him on the floor. And he doesn't
weigh much