to-morrow evening. If you call
for me you can see him," she whispered.

"I am bursting with curiosity," replied Philippina.

For a while Dorothea sat in perfect silence, and then exclaimed: "If I
only had money, Philippin', if I only had money!"

"I thought the American had piles of it," replied Philippina.

"Of course he has money, lots of it," said Dorothea, and her eyes
flashed, "but--"

"But? What do you mean?"

"Do you think men do things without being compensated?"

"Oh, that's it," said Philippina reflectively, "that's it." She crouched
on a hassock at Dorothea's feet. "How pretty you are, how sweet," she
said in her bass voice: "God, what pretty little feet you have! And what
smooth white skin! Marble's got nothing on you." And with the carnal
concupiscence of a faun in woman's form she took Dorothea's leg in her
hand and stroked the skin as far as the knee.

Dorothea shuddered. As she looked down at the cowering Philippina, she
noticed that there was a button missing on her blouse. Through the
opening, just between her breasts, she saw something brown. "What is
that on your body there?" asked Dorothea.

Philippina blushed. "Nothing for you," she replied in a rough tone, and
held her hand over the opening in her blouse.

"Tell me, Philippina, tell me," begged Dorothea, who could not stand the
thought of any one keeping a secret from her: "Possibly it is your
dowry. Possibly you have made a savings bank out of your bosom?" She
laughed lustily.

Philippina got up: "Yes, it is my money," she confessed with reluctance,
and looked at Dorothea hostilely.

"It must be a whole lot. Look out, or some one will steal it from you.
You will have to sleep on your stomach."

Daniel came down from his study, and heard Dorothea laughing. Grief was
gnawing at his heart; he passed hastily by the door.

XI

One evening, as Philippina came into the hall from the street, she saw a
man coming up to her in the dark; he called her by name. She thought she
recognised his voice, and on looking at him more closely saw that it was
her father.

She had not spoken to him for ten years. She had seen him from time to
time at a distance, but she had always made it a point to be going in
another direction as soon as she saw him; she avoided him, absolutely.

"What's the news?" she asked in a friendly tone.

Jason Philip cleared his throat, and tried to get out of the light in
the hall and