te different."

"I am glad you like him!"

"Why?"

"I don't know. I am glad, that's all!"

At that moment Von Barwig was supremely happy. Neither of them spoke
for a few moments.

"Shall we not begin?" he said, breaking the silence.

Helene walked slowly to the piano and sat down.

At that moment Joles entered the room with a message for Miss Stanton.

"Put it down, Joles," she said, striking a note here and there on the
piano.

"It's a telegram, miss."

"Oh! bring it to me, then." He obeyed. She opened it and read:

"Left Paris this morning en route to New York.
FATHER."

A feeling of dread crept over her; the smile on her face gave way to a
hardness of expression. Gone was the joy, the happiness, in the girl's
face, and in its place was doubt, apprehension, anxiety.

Von Barwig looked at her; the keen eye of love quickly detected the
presence of fear. He did not speak, but his look demanded an answer to
its question.

"My father is coming home," she said, forcing herself to smile.

"Ah? So? I shall be glad to meet him," said Von Barwig.

Chapter Nineteen

Henry Stanton's return to New York was not marked by any special
outburst of joy on the part of the large retinue of dependents that
constituted the machinery of his household. He was feared rather than
loved by his servants, and this feeling, as has been indicated, was
shared by his daughter in common with others. It was not that he did
not want to be loved, or that he was indifferent to the feelings and
opinion of others concerning him. On the contrary, he, of all men, was
most anxious that others should think well of him. But his manner was
stern, harsh and repellent, and he did not seem to have the capacity to
gain the confidence or sympathy of those around him. Although generous
even to extravagance where it gratified his vanity, of broad-minded
charity in its higher and nobler sense the man knew nothing. He gave
not because he loved, but because his charities reflected lustre on his
name; and here was the man's most vulnerable point, his sensitiveness
as to name, fame, honour, reputation dignity, public opinion. "What
will the world think?" stood out in blazing letters on a glittering
signpost pointing to the motive of all he did. And so when Mr. Stanton
told his daughter, the day after his arrival, that he approved of her
engagement to Beverly Cruger and that it gave him great happiness, the
utter absence of g