That baby! He remembered keenly, as he stood here unnoticed, of once looking down at his own baby son, years before, as the laughing, crowing infant lay just as this one did across his mother's lap. That was before men had begun to call him the Griffin of Wall Street. The tenderer feelings of the man's nature were stirred. Opening his heart to little Carolyn, who at first had only amused him and piqued his curiosity, had made a breach for thoughts other than those of mere business to enter in. He had learned of late to smile at her prattle, therefore he could now smile down upon the baby. The Griffin cleared his throat. "Beg pardon, young woman. So you are the baby's mother?" he asked mildly. She sprang up with a half-stifled scream, startled from her reverie. She clutched the baby to her breast as though she feared for his safety as she whirled to face the man. Which of them was the more amazed as they stared at each other it would have been difficult to tell. But as the young woman shrank from him, the Griffin's scowl grew black. "_You?_" he said, explosively. [Illustration: _"You!" he said, explosively._] She feared him. She stepped back, ever so lightly, holding her baby tight, _tight_. But the little one, recognizing a friend, put out both his arms and crowed. The baby's mother had but seldom before seen her husband's father. And on those few occasions he had shown himself so plainly her enemy that there was good reason why she should be frightened in his presence. Besides, was he not attempting through his secretary, Inness, to cut her and her husband and baby off from the few friends they had remaining--to drive them across the continent that they might not by chance cross his path? These thoughts, bruising her heart for days, had brought the young woman--gently as she had been bred--to the border of revolt. It was this man's fault--and his wife's fault--that Joe Bassett was unsuccessful, was timid, and was hopeless under trial. He had been brought up to a life of ease, and his only rugged trait was that of stubbornness. He would not be driven. But that stubbornness of character had not yet been transformed, she thought, into a firmness and determination to win against any odds. She laid her husband's faults, which of late had seemed so magnified, entirely to his parents. She not alone feared this hard-featured, grey-faced man who stood before her; but she displayed a rooted dislike for him. While the baby put out his hands and babbled to the Griffin, the young woman retired from his vicinity. Carolyn and Prince came romping back, the child's eyes aglow, her cheeks flushed, and all alive with happiness and love--a contrast to his own emotions that the man could not fail to mark.