HN C. CALHOUN BIVENS, a millionaire.
DR. HENRY WOODMAN, who loves his neighbour.
HARRIET, his daughter.
HIS MAJESTY, the King of America.

THE ROOT OF EVIL

Book 1--The Seed

CHAPTER I

A STAR BOARDER

At the end of a warm spring day in New York, James Stuart sat in the
open window of his room on Washington Square, smiling. With a sense of
deep joy he watched the trees shake the raindrops from their new
emerald robes, and the flying clouds that flecked the Western sky melt
into seas of purple and gold.

A huckster turned into Fourth Street, crying:

"Straw--berries! Straw--berries!"

And the young lawyer laughed lazily.

The chatter of the sparrows, the shouts of children in the Square and
the huckster's drawling call seemed the subtones of a strangely
beautiful oratorio of nature into which every sound of earth had softly
melted. Even the roar of the elevated trains on Sixth Avenue and the
screech of their wheels as the cars turned the corner of the filthy
street in the rear were music. A secret joy filled the world. Nothing
could break its spell--not even the devilish incessant rattle of the
machine hammers flattening the heads of the rivets on the huge steel
warehouse of the American Chemical Company rising across the avenue.
The music he heard was from within, and the glory of life was shining
from his eyes.

Again the huckster's cry rang over the Square:

"Straw--berries! Straw--berries!"

The dreamer closed his eyes and smiled. A flood of tender memories
stole into his heart from the sunlit fields of the South. He had gone
hunting wild strawberries with Nan Primrose on the hills at home in
North Carolina the day he first knew that he loved her.

How beautiful she was that day in the plain blue cotton dress which
fitted her superb young figure to perfection! How well he remembered
every detail of that ramble over the red hills--he could hear now the
whistle of a bob white sitting on the fence near the spring where they
lunched, calling to his mate. As Nan nestled closer on the old stile,
they saw the little brown bird slip from her nest in a clump of straw,
lift her head, and softly answer.

"Look!" Nan had whispered excitedly. "There's her nest!"

He recalled distinctly his tremor of sympathetic excitement as her warm
hand drew him to the spot. With peculiar vividness he remembered the
extraordinary moisture of the palm of her hand trembling with eager
interest as he counted the