For there were tears in her eyes—­eyes that glistened with happiness—­and there was a hand in hers, and as she looked at her husband she knew that their hands had clasped each other because they saw the same sweet vision.

He looked at his wife, and said,

“Could I have been the rich man I one day hoped to be—­the great merchant I longed to be, when I asked you to marry me—­I could have owned nothing—­no diamond—­so dear to me as that very tear in your eye.  I wanted to be rich—­I felt as if I had cheated you, in being so poor and unsuccessful—­you, who were bred so differently.  For your sake I wanted to be rich.”  He spoke with a stronger, fuller voice.  “Yes, and when Laura Magot broke my engagement with her because of my first failure, I resolved that she should see me one of the merchant princes she idolized, and that my wife should be envied by her as being the wife of a richer man than Boniface Newt.  Darling, you know how I struggled for it—­you did not know the secret spur—­and how I failed.  And I know who it was that made my failure my success, and who taught a man who wanted to be rich how to be happy.”

While he spoke his wife’s arm had stolen tenderly around him.  As he finished, she said, gently,

“I am not such a saint, Gerald.”

“If you are not, I don’t believe in saints,” replied her husband.

“No, I will prove it to you.”

“I defy you,” said Gerald, smiling.

“Listen!  Why did you say Lucia in such a tone, a little while ago?” asked his wife.

Gerald Bennet smiled with arch kindness.

“Shall I answer truly?”

“Under pain of displeasure.”

“Well,” he began, slowly, “when I heard that Laura Magot’s husband had failed, as I knew that Lucia Darro’s husband had once been jilted by Laura Magot because he failed, I could not help wondering—­now, Lucia dear, how could I help wondering?—­I wondered how Lucia Darro would feel.  Because—­because—­”

He made a full stop, and smiled.

“Because what?” asked his wife.

He lingered, and smiled.

“Because what?” persisted his wife, with mock gravity.

“Because Lucia Darro was a woman, and—­well!  I’ll make a clean breast of it—­and because, although a man and woman love each other as long and dearly as Lucia Darro and her husband have and do, there is still something in the woman that the man can not quite understand, and upon which he is forever experimenting.  So I was curious to hear, or rather to see and feel, what your thoughts were; and, at the moment I spoke, I thought I saw them, and I was surprised.”

“Exactly, Sir; and that surprise ought to have shown you that I was no saint.  Listen again, Sir.  Lucia Darro’s husband was never jilted by Laura Magot, for the impetuous and ambitious young man who was engaged to that lady is an entirely different person from my husband.  Do you hear, Sir?”