. We are back where
we started, so to speak, and I don't look for a time of unheralded
prosperity for some days to come. I was figuring up while I was away,
in detail; and here are the results." He handed her a memorandum. "You
see? I earn a splendid living and I have a neat nest egg not to be
despised. But I have no Italian-villa income. Your father has, so you
came back to your father to take his money and I am merely a necessary
accessory to the entire ensemble." His voice was bitter.

"Oh, no, Stevuns!" She was quite the romantic parasite as she came and
knelt beside him in coaxing attitude. "Why, papa wishes me to have
everything I want. He would be terribly worried if he thought I had to
do without a single shoe button!"

"But must all the shoe buttons be of gold?" Steve interpolated.

She paid no attention to him. "I'm papa's only heir--the money is all
mine, anyway, and it always has been. You know how simple papa's
tastes are."

"Like my own--like those of all busy people who are doing things. We
haven't time to pamper ourselves."

"Someone has to buy up the trash! And you ought to thank us rich
darlings of the gods for existing at all--we make you look so
respectable by contrast." She waited for his answer.

He rose and went over to the carved mantel, standing so he could look
down the long room crowded with luxuries.

"But this place isn't the home of an American man and his wife. It's a
show place--bought with your father's money! And I've failed. I'm not
supporting my wife. Good heavens, if I were I'd have to be cracking
safes every week-end to do it. I can't make any more money than I am
making--and stay at large--and you cannot go on living off your father
and being my wife. I won't have it! I won't be that kind of a
failure!"

"What shall I do with the money, throw it to the birds?" Her head
began to ache, as it always did when a serious conversation was at
hand.

"Wait until it is yours and then spend it on something for the
good--not the delight--of someone else, or of a great many other
people. Be my wife--let me take care of you," he begged, earnestly.

Beatrice hesitated. "I couldn't," was her final answer. "I couldn't
manage with the allowance you give me--don't worry, dearest, there's
no reason at all that we shouldn't have as good a time as there is.
Papa wants us to."

"Don't you see what I'm trying to get at?" he insisted. "Won't you try
to see? Just try--put yourself in my place