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“Why, nothing has happened,” said Van Bibber, soothingly. “You would both benefit by it. We would be as willing to help two as one. You would both be better off.”

The young man raised his head and stared at Van Bibber reprovingly.

“You know better than that,” he said. “You know what I’d look like. Of course she could make money as a dancer, I’ve known that for some time, but she hasn’t thought of it yet, and she’d never have thought of it herself. But the question isn’t me or what I want. It’s Annie. Is she going to be happier or not, that’s the question. And I’m telling you that she couldn’t be any happier than she is now. I know that, too. We’re just as contented as two folks ever was. We’ve been saving for three months, and buying furniture from the instalment people, and next month we were going to move into a flat on Seventh Avenue, quite handy to the hotel. If she goes onto the stage could she be any happier? And if you’re honest in saying you’re thinking of the two of us–I ask you where would I come in? I’ll be pulling this wire rope and she’ll be all over the country, and her friends won’t be my friends and her ways won’t be my ways. She’ll get out of reach of me in a week, and I won’t be in it. I’m not the sort to go loafing round while my wife supports me, carrying her satchel for her. And there’s nothing I can do but just this. She’d come back here some day and live in the front floor suite, and I’d pull her up and down in this elevator. That’s what will happen. Here’s what you two gentlemen are doing.” The young man leaned forward eagerly. “You’re offering a change to two people that are as well off now as they ever hope to be, and they’re contented. We don’t know nothin’ better. Now, are you dead sure that you’re giving us something better than what we’ve got? You can’t make me any happier than I am, and as far as Annie knows, up to now, she couldn’t be better fixed, and no one could care for her more.

“My God! gentlemen,” he cried, desperately, “think! She’s all I’ve got. There’s lots of dancers, but she’s not a dancer to me, she’s just Annie. I don’t want her to delight the gayety of nations. I want her for myself. Maybe I’m selfish, but I can’t help that. She’s mine, and you’re trying to take her away from me. Suppose she was your girl, and some one was sneaking her away from you. You’d try to stop it, wouldn’t you, if she was all you had?” He stopped breathlessly and stared alternately from one to the other of the young men before him. Their countenances showed an expression of well-bred concern.

“It’s for you to judge,” he went on, helplessly; “if you want to take the responsibility, well and good, that’s for you to say. I’m not stopping you, but she’s all I’ve got.”

The young man stopped, and there was a pause while he eyed them eagerly. The elevator bell rang out again with vicious indignation.

Travers struck at the toe of his boot with his stick and straightened his shoulders.

“I think you’re extremely selfish, if you ask me,” he said.

The young man stood up quickly and took his elevator rope in both hands. “All right,” he said, quietly, “that settles it. I’ll take you up to Annie now, and you can arrange it with her. I’m not standing in her way.”

“Hold on,” protested Van Bibber and Travers in a breath. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” growled Travers.

The young man stood immovable, with his hands on the wire and looking down on them, his face full of doubt and distress.

“I don’t want to stand in Annie’s way,” he repeated, as though to himself. “I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll take you to the seventh floor or I’ll drop you to the street. It’s up to you, gentlemen,” he added, helplessly, and turning his back to them threw his arm against the wall of the elevator and buried his face upon it.

There was an embarrassing pause, during which Van Bibber scowled at himself in the mirror opposite as though to ask it what a man who looked like that should do under such trying circumstances.

He turned at last and stared at Travers. “‘Where ignorance is bliss, it’s folly to be wise,'” he whispered, keeping his face toward his friend. “What do you say? Personally I don’t see myself in the part of Providence. It’s the case of the poor man and his one ewe lamb, isn’t it?”

“We don’t want his ewe lamb, do we?” growled Travers. “It’s a case of the dog in a manger, I say. I thought we were going to be fairy godfathers to ‘La Cinderella.'”

“The lady seems to be supplied with a most determined godfather as it is,” returned Van Bibber.

The elevator boy raised his face and stared at them with haggard eyes.

“Well?” he begged.

Van Bibber smiled upon him reassuringly, with a look partly of respect and partly of pity.

“You can drop us to the street,” he said.