Atkins frowned. "Have a care, Jane!--Alison is not the man to forgive an insult, least of all from you. He may have borne it for the moment, but he will never forget it, and you may have to atone for it at some future day. I know him!" "And so do I! Have no anxiety, Mr. Atkins, I do not fear this sort of revenge, neither do I care for it!" "Avoid that tone, Miss Jane, at least in speaking of him. You might drive him to break his troth." "Hardly! Mr. Alison too well knows my value to him." Atkins shook his head. He had never before seen his ward thus. "You know as well as I, that Alison loves you in spite of all, and would have loved you without your fortune," he said. "And would have chosen me?" He was silent. "Spare your championship!" said Jane bitterly. "I know to what considerations I shall alone owe the honor of one day being called Mrs. Alison!" Atkins fixed his keen glance upon her for a moment. "And is this anything new to you?" he asked deliberately. "Did you not know this just as well as now when, five months ago you promised him your hand? and this promise which the heir and future head of the house of Alison and Company then received"--he laid a marked emphasis upon the words--"would it have been given him if he had, for example, held there the modest position of clerk?" The thrust took effect, for a moment, as if conscious of guilt, Jane lowered her head; the words with which she had announced her betrothal to her father came back to her remembrance. At that time all this had appeared simple and natural; now, indeed, five months had come and gone, five months and--three days! "You see," continued Atkins cuttingly and relentlessly, "that the dollar also played its role with you, and why not? Mr. Forest educated you into sensible conceptions of life and its realities. Love is a luxury,--which the rich only can allow themselves--and Alison allowed it in his choice. But one must not fall so deeply in love as to forget one's reckoning, which is still the main thing in life." "In America--yes!" said Jane in a hollow voice. Atkins shrugged his shoulders. "In Germany there certainly may be extravagantly sentimental heads, that would have no regard at all for a million, and are in a position to unhesitatingly turn their backs to an heiress, if they happen to be not quite pleased with her. Will you reproach Mr. Alison, because he knows better how to estimate such advantages? Those gentlemen in their exalted manly pride may appear very magnanimous, but--they will never become millionaires." "You are right," said Jane hastily, and in a voice of icy coldness. "_To every one his own_." Atkins gazed at her as if he did not really know what the answer meant. She had again become thoroughly Miss Forest in her impenetrable repose, as she now stood before him, and yet, there had been a tone of irony in her words. But it was a useless endeavor to seek to solve the enigma to-day; he gave it up.