"Oh, very well," weakened Hampstead, bowing his head, "I cannot brook that gaze for long. It shall be as your Grace commands." "Tired, aren’t you?" commented Bessie, suddenly mollified, and scanning the big face narrowly, while a look of soberness came into her eyes. "I can see it; and your eyes look bad—very bad, John." Her voice was girlishly sympathetic. "These people do not appreciate you, either. But I do! I know!" and she nodded her round chin stoutly, while she laid a hand upon the arm of this man who, seven years her senior, was in some respects her junior. "You are a very great man in the day of his obscurity. It will come out some time. You will be General Manager of the railroad, or something very, very big. Won’t you?" and she leaned close again with that delightfully confidential whisper. "I admit it," confessed John, with a happy chuckle. But Bessie’s restless eye had fallen upon the clock. "Pickles and artichokes!" she exclaimed, with a sudden change of mood, "I must flit." Snatching from her bag a crumpled note, she tossed it on the desk, calling back: "Here. This is what I want to say to ’em." Hampstead sat for a moment looking after her, his lips parted, his great hands set upon his knees with fingers sprawled very widely, until Bessie was out of view behind the double doors that admitted to her father’s presence. *CHAPTER II* *ONE MAN AND ANOTHER* In the dusk of the early winter’s night in that land where winter hints its presence but slightly in any other way, two children dashed out of a rambling shell of a cottage that sprawled rather hopelessly over an unkempt lot, screaming: "Uncle John! Uncle John!" Roused from castled, starry dreams, the big stenographer, who had been enjoying the feel of the dark upon his eyes, and the occasional happy fragrance of orange blossoms in his nostrils, greeted each with a bear hug, and the three clattered together up the rickety steps into a tiny hall. On the left was an oblong room, and beyond it, through curtains, appeared a table set for dinner. Light streaming in from this second room revealed the first as a sort of parlor-studio, where a piano, a lounge, easels, malsticks, palettes, and stacks of unframed canvases jostled each other indifferently. An inspection would have shown that these pictures were mostly landscapes, with now and then a flower study in brilliant colors; and to the practised eye a distressing atmosphere of failure would have obtruded from every one. From somewhere beyond the dining room came the odor of cooking food, and the sound of energetic but heavy footsteps. "Hello, Rose," called John cheerily.