le the salary if you would accept
it. He thought you wouldn't, merely because you lived in the house of
old Woodman with whom the Company may have a fight. I told him it was
nonsense--that I knew you would accept. Of course, Jim, dear, I
couldn't tell him why--I couldn't tell him what it meant to me, though
I felt like screaming it in his face. You'll accept, of course?"

"Emphatically no!"

"You can't be so absurd!"

"Yes I can."

"Why?"

Stuart looked away in moody silence.

"Have you been receiving the attentions of this distinguished young
millionaire, Nan?"

"I've been cultivating him."

"Cultivating?"

"Yes, for your sake only--you big, handsome, foolish, jealous boy! You
can't be in earnest when you say that you will refuse such an offer?"

"I am in earnest," was the grim reply.

"But why, why--why?"

"First, because I will not become the hireling of a corporation, to say
nothing of this particular one headed by Mr. Bivens."

"Nonsense, Jim. You wouldn't be a hireling. You would lay the law down
for them to follow."

"No. A modern corporation has no soul, and the man who serves this
master must sell both body and soul for the wages he receives. I am a
lawyer of the old school. My work is illumined by imagination. My
business is to enforce justice in the relations of men."

"But some of the greatest lawyers in America are corporation
attorneys----"

"All the reason more why I should keep clean. Lawyers once constituted
our aristocracy of brain and culture."

"But, Jim, you could prevent injustice by your will and ability!"

"Nonsense, Nan. It's the kind of work you have to do. The very nature
of it excludes an ideal. Its only standard is gold--hard, ringing
metallic gold! I can't prostitute my talents to a work I don't believe
in. A man's work is a revelation of what he is. And what he is will
depend at last on what he does."

A frown of impatience had steadily grown in the girl's face and the
curves of her lips hardened with sudden determination.

"But you mean to be rich and powerful, Jim?"

"If it comes with the growth of manhood and character, yes. But I will
not degrade myself with work I hate, or take orders from men I despise.
The world is already full of such slaves. I mean to make one less, not
one more of them."

"You know I don't wish you to be degraded," Nan broke in, earnestly. "I
want you to be great."

"Then, don't forget, sweetheart, that it's the great man who can b