ers thus far guaranteed as much.

"Yes," she replied, "we do have a pole-star, but you do not seem able
to find it. Do you expect to find your ideal in any living woman?"

"I have found it," he answered, wondering at the ingenuity and
complexity of her mind--and of his own, for that matter--of all mind
indeed. Deep below deep it lay, staggering him at times by its
fathomless reaches. "I hope you will take seriously what I am going to
say, for it will explain so much. When I began to be interested in
your picture I was so because it coincided with the ideal I had in
mind--the thing that you think changes swiftly. That was nearly seven
years ago. Since then it has never changed. When I saw you at your
school on Riverside Drive I was fully convinced. Although I have said
nothing, I have remained so. Perhaps you think I had no right to any
such feelings. Most people would agree with you. I had them and do
have them just the same, and it explains my relation to your mother.
When she came to me once in Louisville and told me of her difficulties
I was glad to help her for your sake. That has been my reason ever
since, although she does not know that. In some respects, Berenice,
your mother is a little dull. All this while I have been in love with
you--intensely so. As you stand there now you seem to me amazingly
beautiful--the ideal I have been telling you about. Don't be
disturbed; I sha'n't press any attentions on you." (Berenice had moved
very slightly. She was concerned as much for him as for herself. His
power was so wide, his power so great. She could not help taking him
seriously when he was so serious.) "I have done whatever I have done in
connection with you and your mother because I have been in love with
you and because I wanted you to become the splendid thing I thought you
ought to become. You have not known it, but you are the cause of my
building the house on Fifth Avenue--the principal reason. I wanted to
build something worthy of you. A dream? Certainly. Everything we do
seems to have something of that quality. Its beauty, if there is any,
is due to you. I made it beautiful thinking of you."

He paused, and Berenice gave no sign. Her first impulse had been to
object, but her vanity, her love of art, her love of power--all were
touched. At the same time she was curious now as to whether he had
merely expected to take her as his mistress or to wait until he could
honor her as his wife.