“Why, yes,” said Barbara, “I have.”

She took a box of safety matches from a cigar-table, and kneeling, lighted the fire in the big chimney-piece.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said; “I’m shivery.”

She knelt on, watching the little flames grow into big flames, and spreading her hands to the warmth.  Her face, arms, throat, and the front of her white dress became golden.  She looked more like some lovely vestal of fire-worship than an ambitious American girl, determined to achieve fame in the battleground of the world.

“Why, yes,” she repeated, “it has seemed strange to me.  When I’ve thought that I wanted to do things, you always took a lot of interest and trouble, but when I knew that I wanted to do one thing, you gave me a dreadfully cold shoulder.”  She smiled whimsically.  “I shall do an allegory in bluish-white marble—­The Cold Shoulder.”

She retreated a little from the fire, and sat at her father’s feet.  He laid his hand on her many-colored hair.

From childhood Barbara had resented parental caresses.  On the present occasion, she felt a sudden tenderness for her father, and leaned a little against him, in answer to the touch of his hand.

“Did it ever,” said he, “strike you as strange that you never took any interest in my career?”

“I’ve always been tremendously proud of you,” she said.  “You know that.”

“You liked my results,” he said, “the show pieces—­newspaper notoriety—­speech-making—­the races in special trains against death.  But you don’t even know what has chiefly interested me during the last thirty years; nor the goal which I have felt I must reach before I could be resigned to parting with this life.”

“No,” she said gently, “I don’t.  Tell me.  I want to be interested.”

“You know, of course, that I experiment with animals.”

“Yes.  I have seen crates of guinea-pigs and monkeys at the laboratory door.  I’m afraid it always made me a little unhappy.  But I suppose it’s the only way to get certain results.  And you always give them something, don’t you?”

“Always.  They don’t suffer more than a man would while healing a deep clean cut.  In other words, they don’t suffer at all.  And they’re not unhappy, and they don’t bear malice.  And still I wouldn’t do it, if I could help myself.  I think, my dear, that I have been chosen for my sins to introduce a great benefit to mankind.  It seems now only a question of perfecting the technique.  I’ve already had extraordinary results.”

“What’s the idea?”

“You know, of course, that a piece of skin from one man can be successfully grafted on another man.  Well, so can a liver, a finger, a hand, a foot, an arm, a leg.  I have two monkeys now:  a black and a gray.  The black monkey has the gray hands and forearms, the gray monkey has the black.  I made the exchange eighteen months ago.  And they have developed the same strength and skill with the