is the most splendid, touching, exquisite thing ever imagined!"
Thorndyke listened attentively, deeply interested in the human side of a man who had seemed to him to have a very small amount of the purely human in him. The little story of Letty Standiford's health and heart and nature did not strike him as puerile—there was nothing puerile about Silas Standiford, and his love for this child of his old age was, in truth, a Titanic passion, strong enough, as he said, to make him forego the chief object of his existence: power over other men. Thorndyke really liked and pitied Letty Standiford, living her young life without guidance, in a manner possible only in America and not desirable anywhere for a young girl. He had not suspected the delicacy of her constitution, and after Senator Standiford ceased speaking said:
"I wish, Senator, you could persuade Miss Standiford to be a little more prudent about her health. The night I dined out with her, when it came time to go home she was about to pick up her skirts and run two blocks to your hotel, in her satin slippers, with sleet coming down, and the streets like glass—this, for a lark. I took her by the arm and shoved
