"I didn't need music," he told himself bitterly, all her hysteria over money and luxury flooding his mind with a nauseating enlightenment. "She took me, quick enough, when she saw the gold! Money, money! That's all she has thought of, from the day I showed her the vein. Little peacock, strutting around, showing off her finery. What a blind fool a man can be. And it had to wind up this way. She took money from me for her stock--thinking it was my last dollar. Afraid my account wouldn't cover it! If she thinks I'm that near broke, why did she take that check? Sell out, just like all the rest, because Parowan's on the rocks and the stock's not worth a damn, and she stood to lose something if she didn't unload quick. So she unloaded--five dollars a share because I offered it--to _me_! Her own husband, the man who gave her the claim that put her in the Company to begin with. "What has she ever done to help? What's she doing now? Looking after her own little dollar pile--that's what. And she didn't _need_ it! I gave her half a million in bonds, last Christmas. My God, even Rayfield wouldn't have done what she did to-night! And the way she's treated her folks. That shows the stuff she's made of. I don't blame Don for turning me down every time I tried to do something for him. They're proud--the right kind of pride. They're proud to make their own way. But Doris--neglecting them and not wanting them in California for a visit--excuses, the thinnest kind of excuses. Ashamed to have them at the hotels, that was why. She couldn't bear the thought of leading her pudgy old mother and her big, awkward dad into the dining room to her table! Afraid they might eat their salad with the fork dedicated to fish! Old Don might possibly put his soup spoon into his mouth front end forward! Snob! Cold-blooded, heartless little snob!" So he railed at her, lashing his anger with the memory of her foolishness. But when he thought of baby Mary, his heart failed him. Beginning to toddle now, she was. And squinting her nose at him and laughing, and hiding her head in a cushion when he went down on his hands and knees and boo-ooed at her. Holding out her little arms to him and pleading "Take!" when the nurse came to carry her off to bed. She must be in her little white nightgown now, with pink toes wriggling, little white teeth flashing when she laughed. He wondered, hungrily, if she missed her daddy,--wanted him to come and play little-pigs-going-to-market. Bill couldn't stand it. He put on his hat and went out, locking the gate after him and steeling himself against Luella's protestations. He would go back to the big house on the hill. He couldn't leave his baby girl to go "bye-bye" without kissing her daddy good night.