"Yes, quite," was the sober answer. "But it doesn't explain the lines of suffering in your dear face to-night—I'm worried."
"But I'm not suffering!" he insisted with a frown. "On the other hand I'm cheerful to-night. I saved a kid's life with a flower. His father used to work for me in the old days. They asked me to come to see him. There was no hope. He had been given up to die. I gave him a fragrant white pink. His thin feverish fingers grasped it eagerly. In all his life he had never held a flower in his hand before. He pressed it to his lips, his soul thrilled at its sweet odour, and the little tired spirit came staggering back from the mists of Eternity just to see what it meant. He will live. It was the feather's weight that tipped the beam of life the right way. How little it takes sometimes to give life and happiness. And how tragic and pitiful the fact that so many of us can't get that little at the right moment!"
The joy and laughter had slowly faded from his face and voice as he spoke until the last words had unconsciously fallen into accents of despair.
The girl's arms slipped around his neck in a tightening hold and she pressed her cheek against his a moment in silence.
"Papa dear, it's no use trying to deceive me. I've the right to know what is troubling you. I'm not a child. You must tell me."
"Why, it's nothing much, dearie," he answered gently. "I'm worried a little about money. I've a note due at the bank and they've called on me unexpectedly to meet it. But I'll manage somehow. Don't you worry about it. Everything will come out all right. I feel like a millionaire among the people I've seen to-day."
"I'll give up my music, go to work and help you right away."
"Sh!"
The father placed his hand gently over her lips and the tears sprang into his eyes in spite of his effort to keep them back.
"Don't talk sacrilege, my child. Such words are blasphemy. God gave me a man's body for the coarse work of bread-winning. He gave you the supreme gift, a voice that throbs with eloquence, a power that can lift and inspire the world. Only when you are cultivating that gift are you working. Then you are doing the highest and finest thing of which you are capable. I should be a criminal if I permitted you to do less. Never say such a thing again unless you would make me utterly miserable."