hed lightly, as he answered:

"It feels great! To know that you've done something; to know that
you've made a name and a place for yourself; to realize that no one
dare try to walk over you; to feel that your bitterest enemy respects
you and your rights because if he doesn't it means a fight to the
finish--that makes a man feel good--"

"I should think it would!" she exclaimed.

"And then," he went on, "success means money, and money means power,
and luxury and every comfort that the world can give. If a successful
man wishes to travel by land, he has his private car, if he wishes to
travel by sea, he has his own yacht, and so it goes."

"It must be wonderful to be like you, and have everything that you
could wish for."

He smiled at her enthusiasm, and then his manner suddenly became more
serious. In a tone which had peculiar emphasis, he said:

"I didn't say that I had everything I could wish for."

"Well, haven't you?" she demanded, as if surprised that a man so
wealthy, so successful, could possibly lack anything he really
desired.

"No," he replied slowly, "I haven't a home."

Still she appeared not to understand. Looking around at the
magnificence all about her, she exclaimed:

"Why, all this is so beautiful--"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"This?" he echoed. "This isn't a home. It's merely the place in which
I live--sometimes."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, light beginning to dawn upon her.

He went on:

"Furniture, pictures, tapestries, books--they don't make a home. Only
a woman can do that--"

He stopped short and looked fixedly at her, a deep, searching look, as
if he would read her very soul. Their eyes met, and instinctively she
divined what his words implied and at whom they were directed. The
moment she had dreaded had come at last. This man was about to ask her
to marry him. Instead of exulting at this triumph, this conquest which
would make her the envied wife of a millionaire, she was suddenly
seized by a nervous dread. With pale face and trembling lips, she
waited for him to speak, her heart throbbing so furiously that she
could almost hear the beats. The time had come when she must make up
her mind. She liked him, but she did not love him. She must either
refuse this millionaire and voluntarily forego the life of
independence and luxury such a marriage would mean, or she must be
false to her most sacred convictions and marry a man she did not love.
Most girls would not hesitate. It was a