I'm satisfied. An' don't cut me off
from spending money for ye, for that's half me fun. How else can I pay
ye for your help to me? I've been troubled by your face ever since we
left home. You don't smile as ye used to do. Don't ye like it here? If
ye don't we'll go back. Shall we do that?"

She, overwhelmed by his generosity, could only nod.

His face cleared. "Very well, the procession will head west whenever you
say the word. I hope you don't object to the old father. If ye do--"

"Oh no; I like him."

"Then we'll take him; but, remember, I'll let no one come into our home
that will trouble you. I'd as soon have a cinder in me eye as a man I
don't like sitting beside me fire; and if the old man is a burden to ye,
out he goes." He rose, and came painfully to where she sat, and in a
voice of humble sorrow, slowly said: "I don't ask ye to love
me--now--I'm not worth it; and once I thought I'd like a son to bear my
name, but 'tis better not. I'll never lay that burden upon ye. All I ask
is the touch of yer hand now and then, and your presence when I come to
die--I'm scared to die alone. 'Twill be a dark, long journey for old
Mart, and he wants your face to remember when he sets forth."

CHAPTER XXII

THE SERPENT'S COIL

Lofty as Jerome Humiston talked, and poetic as his face seemed to Bertha
Haney, he was at heart infinitely more destructive than any man she had
ever known; for he took a satanic delight in proving that all women were
alike in their frailty. He had reached also that period of decay wherein
the libertine demands novelty--where struggle is essential, and to
conquer easily is to fail of the joy of victory.

He, too, had rushed to the conclusion that this girl had married an old
and broken gambler for his money, and that she was of those to be easily
won. Her air of demure reserve piqued him--pleased him. "She is no silly
kitten," he mentally remarked, after their second meeting. "She's in for
a big career. With beauty and youth and barrels of money she will go
far, and I will be her guide--unless I have lost my cunning. She will
share her fortune with me some day, and I will teach her to live."

He met her at the door of his studio next day with a grave and tender
smile. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "but I'll have to confess that I
have very little to show you here. My pictures are all down at the
gallery, and some of them not yet hung. Next week they will all be in
place. But sit down