interest could somehow be
stimulated, the little fellow would die from sheer lack of incentive to
live. Her emotion moistened her eyes and constricted her throat muscles.
She had to clear her throat before she could speak.

"I can only promise to do my very best for this dear little boy," she
said hurriedly. "No human being can do more than his best."

"Doctor Parris tells me you have been uniformly successful with the
cases he's put you on. I hope," the young father entreated, "that you'll
follow your usual precedent."

"The doctor is too kind," murmured Miss Beaver with slightly lifted
brows. "I fear he gives me more credit than I deserve."

"There I hope you're wrong. He calls you an intuitive psychic. It is
upon your intuitions that I'm banking now. My affection hampers me from
fathoming Frank's inner-most thoughts. If I were really _sure_ what he
needed most, I'd get it for him if it were a spotted giraffe," declared
his father passionately. "But I'm unable to go deeply enough into his
real thoughts."

"If his own father cannot think of something he would care for enough to
make him want to live, how can an outsider find out what he might be
wanting?" argued the nurse, a touch of resentment in her voice. "Would
not his own mother know what would make him want to take hold on life?"

There was an awkward pause.

"His mother," began Frank Wiley III and was interrupted by a light tap
on the door panel, at which he went silent, turning away as if relieved
to escape any explanation.

The door swung open, permitting the entrance of a young and very pretty
woman, one who knew exactly what a charming picture she made in jade
negligee over peach pajamas. About her exceedingly well-shaped head
ash-blonde hair lay in close artificial waves. She was such a
distinctively blonde type that Miss Beaver could not control her
slightly startled downward glance at the dark child tossing on the bed.
Her upward look of bewilderment was met by Frank Wiley's faint smile.

"He takes after the founder of our family," said he in a low, almost
confidential voice. "His great-grandfather was said to have had Indian
blood in his veins, as well as a touch of old Spain. The boy doesn't
look like his mother or me. He's a real throw-back."

The pretty woman had come across the room, pettishly lifting her silk
clad shoulders. Through the straps of embroidered sandals red-tipped
toes wriggled. At the tumbled bed and its small restless occup