“But don’t you see, girl,” he answered, as though for a moment he found it hard to believe his own happiness, “don’t you see?  Larry is such a splendid fellow, and you two were such friends, and you always seemed so fond of him, and with his wealth he could give you so much that I knew I never could give—­”

“Of course, I am fond of Larry; everyone is.  He has absolutely nothing to do in the world but to make himself charming and pleasant and entertaining and amusing.  Why, Stan, I don’t suppose that in all his life he ever did one single thing that was necessary or useful.  He even had a man to help him dress.  He is cultured and intellectual, and bright and witty, and clean and good-natured, possessing, in fact, all the qualifications of a desirable lap dog, and you can’t help liking him, just as you would like a pretty, useless pet.”

Stanford chuckled.  She had described Lawrence Knight so accurately.

“Poor old Larry,” he said.  “What a man he might have been if he had not been so pampered and petted and envied and spoiled, all because of his father’s money.  His heart is right, and at the bottom he has the right sort of stuff in him.  His athletic record at school showed us that.  I think that was why we all liked him so in spite of his uselessness.”

“I wish you could have known my father, Stan,” said Helen thoughtfully, as though she, too, were moved to speak by the wish that her mate might know more of the things that had touched her deeper life.

“I wish so, too,” he answered.  “I know that he must have been fine.”

“He was my ideal,” she answered softly.  “My other ideal, I mean.  From the time I was a slip of a girl he made me his chum.  Until he died we were always together.  Mother died when I was a baby, you know.  Many, many times he would take me with him when he made his professional visits to his patients, leaving me in the buggy to wait at each house—­’to be his hitching post’—­he used to say.  And on those long rides, sometimes out into the country, he talked to me as I suppose not many fathers talk to their daughters.  And because he was my father and a physician, and because we were so much alone in our companionship, I believed him the wisest and best man in all the world, and felt that nothing he said or did could be wrong.  And so, you see, dear, my ideal man, the man to whom I could give myself, came to be the kind of a man that my father placed in the highest rank among men—­a man like you, Stan.  And almost the last talk we had before he died father said to me—­I remember his very words—­’My daughter, it will not be long now until men will seek you, until someone will ask you to share his life.  Keep your ideal man safe in your heart of hearts, daughter, and remember that no matter what a suitor may have to offer of wealth or social rank, if he is not your ideal—­if you cannot respect and admire him for his character and manhood alone—­say no; say no, child,