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288 clicking at the door. And me sending word to the chauffeur 'Let her click till the milk carts rumble—I can pay.' Say—that sure is romance to me."

"Mr. Hayden," remarked Magee, "are we to hear from you?"

Hayden hesitated, and looked for a moment into the black eyes of Myra Thornhill.

"My idea has often been contradicted," he said, keeping his gaze on the girl, "it may be again. But to me the greatest romance in the world is the romance of money making—dollar piling on dollar in the vaults of the man who started with a shoe-string, and hope, and nerve. I see him fighting for the first thousand and then I see his pile growing, slowly at first—faster—faster—faster until a motor-car brings him to his office, and men speak his name with awe in the streets."

"Money," commented Miss Thornhill contemptuously. "What an idea of romance for a man."

"I did not expect," replied Hayden, "that my definition would pass unchallenged. My past