"I don't mind." Bauer got up and pulled a piece of paper towards him and began to sketch something. Helen got up and went to the end of the table where she could see better. "There, Miss Douglas. This is my idea for a chicken raiser." "An incubator?" "Yes. You see this dome is glass, very much like those domes the glass blowers make to put over their glass ships and flowers. The bottom here is wood. The eggs are placed on it in even rows. Here is a hole in the bottom through which the electric lamp is put. A thermostat will regulate the temperature to a fraction of any degree. And--that is all there is to it except to try it on the eggs to see if they will really hatch out." "I don't see how they could help it!" said Helen enthusiastically. "I don't either. There's only one thing I can see that is essential." "What is that?" Helen asked eagerly. "The eggs will have to be good," said Bauer solemnly. Helen in her eagerness to see the drawing, had edged around the table and her face was near Bauer's as she bent over the drawing. She stared at Bauer's solemn face a moment and then burst out laughing, at the same time moving back to the end of the table. "I believe you are making fun of me," she said. In reality there was a part of Bauer's nature which was unexpected. His quiet habits and his slow speech were apt to give an impression of dullness of intellect and lack of mental quickness. Helen was finding out that Bauer was in many ways the quickest of all her acquaintances. And he had a fund of smileless humour that came as a surprise even to those who thought they knew him best. "No, I was not making fun of you," said Bauer. As a matter of fact, he was on the defensive with his own feelings, trying by any means to beat them down into the lonesome place where they belonged when that radiant face appeared so near his own. "Have you tried the machine yet to see if it will work on good eggs?" asked Helen, after a pause, during which Bauer drew a few more lines on the paper. "No, I'm going to make a full trial of it when I go back to Burrton." "And if it should be a success, I suppose there would be money in it too, wouldn't there?" "I suppose so," said Bauer indifferently. "Then you might actually become rich?" "I suppose I might. A man who invented a little mouse trap, I understand, made a fortune from it. There are all sorts of possibilities in the world of invention." "Would you care to be rich?" asked Helen absently. "I might." For the first time in his life Felix Bauer had flash into his soul the power of money to buy, what? Love? Would it be worth anything if it could be bought? And yet women like Helen Douglas felt the power of money and--and--demanded it in the young man who aspired to be a possible wooer in this age. Was she like all the rest? And if he should some time be rich would that make any difference? And if so, what difference? "Money is a great power nowadays," said Helen calmly.