derstand, Albert,
that's all."

He nodded. "I know, Madeline," he said. "You have the right to ask. It
wasn't so much a question of the offer being worthy of me as of my being
worthy the offer. Oh, Madeline, why should you and I pretend? You know
why Mr. Fosdick made me that offer. It wasn't because I was likely to be
worth ten dollars a year to his firm. In Heaven's name, what use would I
be in a stockbroker's office, with my make-up, with my lack of business
ability? He would be making a place for me there and paying me a high
salary for one reason only, and you know what that is. Now don't you?"

She hesitated now, but only for an instant. She colored a little, but
she answered bravely.

"I suppose I do," she said, "but what of it? It is not unheard of, is
it, the taking one's prospective son-in-law into partnership?"

"No, but--We're dodging the issue again, Madeline. If I were likely
to be of any help to your father's business, instead of a hindrance, I
might perhaps see it differently. As it is, I couldn't accept unless I
were willing to be an object of charity."

"Did you tell Father that?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He said a good deal. He was frank enough to say that he did not expect
me to be of great assistance to the firm. But I might be of SOME use--he
didn't put it as baldly as that, of course--and at all times I could
keep on with my writing, with my poetry, you know. The brokerage
business should not interfere with my poetry, he said; your mother would
scalp him if it did that."

She smiled faintly. "That sounds like dad," she commented.

"Yes. Well, we talked and argued for some time on the subject. He asked
me what, supposing I did not accept this offer of his, my plans for the
future might be. I told him they were pretty unsettled as yet. I meant
to write, of course. Not poetry altogether. I realized, I told him, that
I was not a great poet, a poet of genius."

Madeline interrupted. Her eyes flashed.

"Why do you say that?" she demanded. "I have heard you say it before.
That is, recently. In the old days you were as sure as I that you were a
real poet, or should be some day. You never doubted it. You used to tell
me so and I loved to hear you."

Albert shook his head. "I was sure of so many things then," he said. "I
must have been an insufferable kid."

She stamped her foot. "It was less than three years ago that you said
it," she declared. "You are not so frightfully ancient now.