"You've never guessed?"

She lifted her face to his in surprise.

"No."

"Jim."

"Our Jim Stuart?"

She nodded. Her voice wouldn't work.

"Oh, I see, I see!" the father mused. "The first love of a child's
heart grown slowly into the great passion of life."

Again the little head nodded.

"You understand now why I wish to get away, to finish my work abroad.
I'll be nearer to him with the ocean between us. He'll miss me then. I
feel it, know it. When I return he will be proud of my voice. I shall
go mad if I stay here and see him dangling at that woman's heels. I
watched her with him to-day, devouring him with her eyes, her millions
won by his betrayal, yet proud, miserable, envious, and determined to
wreck his life. But I shall return in time to make him know. He loves
music. I shall sing when he hears me as I never sang before, and I
shall say to him then all the unspoken things I dare not put in speech.
You understand, Papa dear, you'll send me away and help me to win?"

The father kissed the trembling lips and answered firmly.

"Yes, I'll raise the money for you right away."

And then for half an hour she lay in his arms while he whispered
beautiful thoughts of her future--things he had promised himself to say
often before and had not said, until at last she smiled with joy. When
he sent her to bed he had kissed the last tear away.

She looked at him wistfully at the door.

"I'm not going to make this fight for fame and money--it's all for the
heart of the man I love."

"I understand, dear!" he answered cheerily as he threw her a last kiss.

When she had gone and he heard her door close, he stood for a moment,
lost in thought, and then slowly exclaimed:

"And now I've got to surrender."

CHAPTER XVI

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST

The bitter reference to Bivens and the crime of his corner in wheat had
roused Nan's lighting blood. She would accept the challenge of this
rabble and show her contempt for its opinions in a way that could not
be mistaken. She determined to give an entertainment whose magnificence
would startle the social world and be her defiant answer to the critics
of her husband. At the same time it would serve the double purpose of
dazzling and charming the imagination of Stuart. She would by a single
dash of power end his indecision as to Bivens's offer and bind with
stronger cords the tie that held him to her.

Her suggestion was received with enthusiasm by her husband.

"