But it had changed her attitude toward him in this, that she no longer adored him as a strong young god who could stand alone, and whom she must worship because of his condescension in casting his eyes upon her.

He needed her!  He needed little Leila Dick!  And the thought gave to her marriage a deeper meaning than that of mere youthful raptures.

He had put her on the train that morning reluctantly, and had promised to call her up the moment she reached town.

So her journey toward Washington on the evening train was an hour of anticipation.  To those who rode with her, she seemed a very pretty and self-contained young person making a perfectly proper and commonplace trip on the five o’clock express—­in her own mind, she was set apart from all the rest by the fact of her transcendant romance.

Her father met her at the station and put her into a taxi.  All the way home she sat with her hand in his.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked.

“Heavenly, Dad.”

They ate dinner together, and she talked of her day, wishing that there was nothing to keep from him, wishing that she might whisper it to him now.  She had no fear of his disapproval.  Dad loved her.

No call had come from Barry.  She finished dinner and wandered restlessly from room to room.

When nine o’clock struck, she crept into the General’s library, and found him in his big chair reading and smoking.

She sat on a little stool beside him, and laid her head against his knee.  Presently his hand slipped from his book and touched her curls.  And then both sat looking into the fire.

“If your mother had lived, my darling,” the old man said, “she would have made things easier for you.”

“About Barry’s going away?”

“Yes.”

“It seems silly for him to go, Dad.  Surely there’s something here for him to do.”

“Gordon thinks that the trip will bring out his manhood, make him less of a boy.”

“I don’t think Gordon understands Barry.”

“And you do, baby?  I’m afraid you spoil him.”

“Nobody could spoil Barry.”

“Don’t love him too much.”

“As if I could.”

“I’m not sure,” the old man said, shrewdly, “that you don’t.  And no man’s worth it.  Most of us are selfish pigs—­we take all we can get—­and what we give is usually less than we ask in return.”

But now she was smiling into the fire.  “You gave mother all that you had to give, Dad, and you made her happy.”

“Yes, thank God,” and now there were tears on the old cheeks; “for the short time that I had her—­I made her happy.”

When Barry came, he found her curled up in her father’s arms.  Over her head the General smiled at this boy who was some day to take her from him.

But Barry did not smile.  He greeted the General, and when Leila came to him, tremulously self-conscious, he did not meet her eyes, but he took her hand in his tightly, while he spoke to her father.