like anyone whom I chanced to admire. I learned long ago how futile
such an idea was."

"Oh, well, I don't see why you need get so angry over a perfect
stranger whom you never laid eyes on until to-day," pouted Alice. "I
am sure she's nothing to any of us that we need quarrel over her."

"A man never gets so old that he is not likely to make a fool of
himself over a pretty face," supplemented Mabel, "and there is no
fool like an old fool."

The uncomfortable drive home came to an end at this juncture, and
Preston Cheney retired to his own room, with the disagreeable words
of his wife and daughter ringing in his ears, and the beautiful face
of the young organist floating before his eyes.

"I wish she were my daughter," he said to himself; "what a comfort
and delight a girl like that would be to me!"

And while these thoughts filled the man's heart the Baroness paced
her room with all the jealous passions of her still ungoverned nature
roused into new life and violence at the remembrance of Joy Irving's
fresh young beauty and Preston Cheney's admiring looks and words.

"I could throttle her," she cried, "I could throttle her. Oh, why is
she sent across my life at every turn? Why should the only two men
in the world who interest me to-day, be so infatuated over that girl?
But if I cannot remove so humble an obstacle as she from my pathway,
I shall feel that my day of power is indeed over, and that I do not
believe to be true."