The Van Ostends, together with Ruth and her husband, had been living the last three winters in Paris, Mr. Van Ostend crossing and recrossing as his business interests demanded or permitted. Champney was much with them, for their home was always open to him who proved an ever welcome guest. He acknowledged to himself, while participating in the intimacy of their home life, that if the child's partiality to his companionship, so undisguisedly expressed on every occasion, should, in the transition periods of girlhood and young womanhood, deepen into a real attachment, he would cultivate it with a view to asking her in marriage of her father when the time should show itself ripe. In his first youthful arrogance of self-assertion he had miscalculated with Ruth Van Ostend. He would make provision that this "undeveloped affair"--so he termed it--with her niece should not miscarry for want of caution. He intended while waiting for Alice to grow up--a feat which her aunt was always deploring as an impossibility except in a physical sense--to make himself necessary in this young life. Thus far he had been successful; her weekly girlish letters conclusively proved it. While waiting for the milk to cease its vigorous flow, he was conscious of reviewing his attitude towards the "undeveloped affair" in some such train of thought, and finding in it nothing to condemn, rather to commend, in fact; for not for the fractional part of a second did he allow a thought of it to divert his mind from the constant end in view: the making for himself a recognized place of power in the financial world of affairs. He knew that Mr. Van Ostend was aware of this steadfast pursuit of a purpose. He knew, moreover, that the fact that the great financier was taking him into his New York office as treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries, was a tacit recognition not only of his six years' apprenticeship in some of the largest banking houses in Europe, but of his ability to acquire that special power which was his goal. In the near future he would handle and practically control millions both in receipt and disbursement. Many of the contracts, already signed, were to be filled within the next three years--the sound of the milking suddenly ceased. "My, how my wrists ache! See, Tave, the pail is almost full; there must be twelve or fourteen quarts in all." She began to rub her wrists vigorously. Octavius muttered: "I told you so. You might have known you couldn't milk steady like that without getting all tuckered out." Champney stepped forward quickly. "Right you are, Tave, every time. How are you, dear old chap?" He held out his hand. "Champ--Champney--why--" he stammered rather than spoke. "It's I, Tave; the same old sixpence. Have I changed so much?"