"Now let this end it," resumed John Rawn. "Let comforts, and let luxuries, come where they have been earned. It's the Rawn half of Grace that has earned the luxuries, Charles, if I am willing to give them to her. Take what you can get, my son, of comfort and luxury in this life--after you've earned them. But earn them first. Your place is over there at the works. This is your opportunity. Fall in with my plans and I'll carry you along. Don't try to hold Grace over there when she belongs here. Don't be selfish, Charles." He relented just a trifle. "I don't say this is going to last for ever. Pull off success over there for us. I'll tell you what I'll do--the day you can charge a storage battery car from one of our second current receivers--finished and in place there in the factory--and run it from the factory up here, I'll make you a present of fifty thousand dollars." VII "And about Grace--?" Ah! that comparison-- "She'll be a good deal closer to you then than she is now. She's half _Rawn_, I tell you, Charles; and love in a cottage does not suit the Rawn blood to-day! "But I'll tell you--" his face lightened a bit at the jest--"you can go on with your brotherhood of man ideas over there at the factory. I hope you love them--those brothers who are trying to ruin me and this company! Try them out--associate with them--love them all you can. Compare that life with this, my boy; and when you've done your work, for which you are paid--when you can charge one car at one receiver, and come from that life to this, on the strength of your brains and your own ability, as I have come here myself--why, I say I'll give you a slice of a million dollars! Then you can compare that life with this, and see how you like the two. I've made up my mind already about that! So has Grace." Halsey turned once more to his wife. She had changed in the last few minutes. Her eye was brighter, her color higher. She was gazing not at her husband nor at her child, but at these rich surroundings. "I wonder if I could play one of my old pieces on the piano any more now?" she said gaily, rising and walking to the seat of the grand piano which stood across the room from them. "I've been so _busy_--" CHAPTER II ASPARAGUS, ALSO POTATOES I What is written is written. Grace moved to Graystone Hall and Halsey remained at the factory cottage; nor did the separation, which was regarded by both as merely temporary after all, afflict either to the extent that both had supposed it would. Grace now became acting mistress of a large and elaborate _ménage_. As to her husband, his domestic affairs fell into the hands of Mrs. Ann Sullivan, wife of Jim Sullivan, Halsey's most trusted foreman in the factory.