e
content now with a fair share of money. It requires more stamina, more
character, more manhood to live a sane, decent life in this town to-day
than it does to become a millionaire."

"But I want you to be ambitious, Jim!" the girl exclaimed,
passionately.

"I am ambitious--for big things--the biggest things. For that reason it
will take more than a child's rattle to satisfy me, though it's made of
gold. I must have the real thing--the thing inside. I hope to have the
applause of the world, but the thing I must have is the approval of my
better self--can't you understand, Nan?"

Stuart paused and laid his hand gently on the girl's white round arm,
and she turned with a start.

"I didn't hear your last sentence, Jim----"

"Of what were you thinking?"

"Of what a woman is always thinking. Consciously or unconsciously, of
my home--whether it shall be a hovel or a palace."

"It all depends on whether Love is the builder----"

"It all depends on the man I marry," was the laughing answer. "I've
always dreamed of you as a man of wealth and power. Your splendid
talents mean this. When you came to New York I was more sure of you
than ever. You've simply got to make money, Jim! Nothing else counts in
the world to-day. I hate poverty--I fear it--I loathe it! Money is the
badge of success, the symbol of power. Nothing else counts."

"And yet," the lover said, drawing closer, "I hold the touch of your
little finger of greater value than all the gold on the earth or
beneath it."

"Don't interrupt me, please, with irrelevant remarks," Nan cried,
laughing in spite of herself. "Seriously, Jim--you must listen to me.
I'm in dead earnest. There's no virtue in riding behind a donkey if you
can own a carriage. There can be no virtue in shivering in a thin dress
if you can wear furs. Even the saints all dream of a Heaven with
streets of gold, chariots to ride in, and gleaming banquet halls! I'm
just a practical saint, Jim. I want mine here and now. You must have
money, if for no other reason, because I wish it!"

"Even if I enter a career of crime with Bivens as my master?"

"Come! Mr. Bivens is a devout member of the church. And you know that
he's in dead earnest----"

"About getting to Heaven? Of course. That's simply his insurance policy
against fire in the next world."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense, Jim. The possession of money is not a crime."

"No. Crime, Nan, is in the heart and its seed always springs from the
soul.