him on the back.
"Wisdom isn't going to die with you. Come and get a new viewpoint."

"I am quite well satisfied with my present one, Doctor," replied the
minister tartly.

"Well, then, come and correct us when we err. It's your duty to save
us if we're in danger, you know."

"He will come," said Hitt. "And now, Carmen, the piano awaits you. By
the way, what did Maitre Rossanni tell you?"

"Oh," replied the girl lightly, "he begged me to let him train me for
Grand Opera."

"Yes?"

"He said I would make a huge fortune," she laughed.

"And so you would! Well?"

"I told him I carried my wealth with me, always, and that my fortune
was now so immense that I couldn't possibly hope to add to it."

"Then you refused the chance!"

"My dear Mr. Hitt," she said, going to him and looking up into his
face, "I am too busy for Grand Opera and money-making. My voice
belongs to the world. I couldn't be happy if I made people pay to hear
me sing."

With that she turned and seated herself at the piano, where she
launched into a song that made the very Reverend Patterson Moore raise
his glasses and stare at her long and curiously.

CHAPTER 7

Man reasons and seeks human counsel; but woman obeys her instincts.
Carmen did this and more. Her life had been one of utter freedom from
dependence upon human judgment. The burden of decision as to the
wisdom of a course of action rested always upon her own thought. Never
did she seek to make a fellow-being her conscience. When the day of
judgment came, the hour of trial or vital demand, it found her
standing boldly, because her love was made perfect, not through
instinct alone, but through conformity with the certain knowledge that
he who lacks wisdom may find it in the right thought of God and man.
And so, when on the next day she joined Hitt and Haynerd in the office
of the Social Era, and learned that Carlson had met their terms,
eagerly, and had transferred to them the moribund Express, she had no
qualms as to the wisdom of the step which they were taking.

But not so her companions. Haynerd was a composite picture of doubt
and fear, as he sat humped up in his chair. Hitt was serious to the
point of gloom, reflecting in a measure his companion's dismal
forebodings.

"I was scared to death for fear he wouldn't sell," Haynerd was saying
as the girl entered; "and I was paralyzed whenever I thought that he
would."

Carmen laughed aloud when she heard these words. "Do