And what would you do?"

Evelyn saw that she was making no headway, and her ideas, exposed to
so practical a man as her father, did seem rather ridiculous. But she
struck out boldly with the scheme that she had been evolving.

"I'd found Institutions of Research, where there should be no teaching,
and students who had demonstrated that they had anything promising in
them, in science, literature, languages, history, anything, should have
the means and the opportunity to make investigations and do work. See
what a hard time inventors and men of genius have; it is pitiful."

"And how much money do you want for this modest scheme of yours?"

"I hadn't thought," said Evelyn, patting her father's hand. And then, at
a venture, "I guess about ten millions."

"Whew! Have you any idea how much ten millions are, or how much one
million is?"

"Why, ten millions, if you have a hundred, is no more than one million
if you have only ten. Doesn't it depend?"

"If it depends upon you, child, I don't think money has any value for
you whatever. You are a born financier for getting rid of a surplus. You
ought to be Secretary of the Treasury."

Mavick rose, lifted up his daughter, and, kissing her with more than
usual tenderness, said, "You'll learn about the world in time," and bade
her goodnight.

XVI

Law and love go very well together as occupations, but, when literature
is added, the trio is not harmonious. Either of the two might pull
together, but the combination of the three is certainly disastrous.

It would be difficult to conceive of a person more obviously up in
the air than Philip at this moment. He went through his office duties
intelligently and perfunctorily, but his heart was not in the work, and
reason as he would his career did not seem to be that way. He was lured
too strongly by that siren, the ever-alluring woman who sits upon the
rocks and sings so deliciously to youth of the sweets of authorship.
He who listens once to that song hears it always in his ears, through
disappointment and success--and the success is often the greatest
disappointment--through poverty and hope deferred and heart-sickness for
recognition, through the hot time of youth and the creeping incapacity
of old age. The song never ceases. Were the longing and the hunger it
arouses ever satisfied with anything, money for instance, any more than
with fame?

And if the law had a feeble hold on him, how much more uncertain was his
gra