hey financed--being one of
the many important mining properties in the great Northwest. All this
he owed to his own indomitable will and pluck, and to his untiring
industry--a quality developed in many another young Southerner the
victim of the war and its aftermath.

And he was always welcome.

Apart from the tie that bound them together--of which Philip was
unconscious--Adam's heart went out to the young fellow as many another
childless, wifeless man's has gone out to youth. He loved his
enthusiasms, his industry, his successes. Most of all he loved the
young man's frankness--the way in which he kept nothing back--even
his earlier escapades, many of which he should have been ashamed of.
Then again he loved the reverence with which Phil treated him, the
deference to his opinions, the acceptance of his standards. Most of
all he loved him for the memory of the long ago.

It was only when the overmastering power of money became the dominant
force--the one recognized and gloated over by Philip--that his face
grew grave. It was then that the older and wiser man, with his keen
insight into the human heart, trembled for the younger, fearing that
some sudden pressure, either of fortune or misfortune, might sweep him
off his feet. It was at these times--Philip's face all excitement with
the telling--that Adam's penetrating eyes, searching into the inner
places, would find the hard, almost pitiless lines which he remembered
so well in the father's face repeated in the son's.

There was, however, one subject which swept these lines out of his
face. That was when Phil would speak of Madeleine, the rich banker's
daughter--Madeleine with her sunny eyes and merry laugh--"Only up to
my shoulder--such a dear girl!" Then there would break over the young
man's face that joyous, irradiating smile, that sudden sparkle of the
eye and quiver of the lip that had made his own mother's face so
enchanting. On these occasions the Street and all it stood for, as
well as books and everything else, was forgotten and Madeleine would
become the sole topic. These two influences struggled for mastery in
the young man's heart; influences unknown to Philip, but clear as
print to the eye of the thoughtful man of the world who, day by day,
read his companion's mind the clearer.

As to Madeleine no subject could be more congenial.

When a young fellow under thirty has found a sympathetic old fellow of
fifty to listen to talks of his sweetheart, and wh