“You couldn't keep it if you cared--really and truly--as some do!” She dropped her voice hurriedly. “To live here and eat your meals day after day and pass me like a stick or a stone!” The slow blood burned in Adam's face and hammered in his pulses. His blue eyes were bashful through its heat. “I don't feel like a stick nor a stone. You know it, Emmy. You want to be careful,” he added gently. “Would going away look as if I cared?” “Why--why don't you ask me to go with you?” The girl tried to meet his eyes. She turned off her question with a proud laugh. “Be--careful, child! You know why I can't take you up on that. Would you want we should leave him here alone--without even Becky? You're only trying me for fun.” “No; I am not!” Emmy was pale now. Her breast was rising in strong excitement. “If we were gone, he would know then what you are worth to him. Now, you're only Adam! He thinks he can put you down like a boy. He won't believe I care for you. There's only one way to show him--that is, if we do care. In one month he would be sending for us back. Then we could come, and you would take your right place here, and be somebody. You would not eat in the kitchen, then. Haven't you been like a son to him? And why shouldn't he own it?” “But if he won't? Suppose he don't send for us to come back?” “Then you could strike out for yourself. What was Tom Madden, before he went away to Colorado, or somewhere--where was it? And now everybody stops to shake hands with him;--he's as much of a man as anybody. If you could make a little money. That's the proof he wants. If you were rich, you'd be all right with him. You know that!” “I'd hate to think it. But I'll never be rich. Put that out of your mind, Emmy. It don't run in the blood. I don't come of a money-making breed.” “What a silly thing to say! Of course, if you don't believe you can, you can't. Who has made the money here for the last ten years?” “It was his capital done it. It ain't hard to make money after you've scraped the first few thousands together. But it's the first thousand that costs.” “How much have you got ahead?” Adam answered awkwardly, “Eleven hundred and sixty odd.” He did not like to talk of money to the girl who was the prayer, the inspiration, of his life. It hurt him to be questioned by her in this sordid way. “You earned it all, didn't you?” “I've took no risks. Here was my home. He give me the chance and he showed me how. And--he's your father. I don't like to talk about his money, nor about my own, to you.” “Oh, you are good, good! Nobody knows! But it's all wasted if you haven't got any push--anything inside of yourself that makes people know what you are. I wish I could put into you some of my _fury_ that I feel when things get in my way! You have held yourself in too long. You can't--_can't_ love a girl, and be so careful--like a mother. Don't you understand?”