“Words are so weak to express what is in the heart,” he said, “but I am sure you know what is in mine—every wish for your happiness and your good fortune—and may you always love each other!”
They drank, and set the glasses back upon the table, and there was a little silence.
Then M. Rizzi brought the lobster for the baron’s approval, and himself proceeded to dismember it.
“There is something else that I recall very vividly,” went on the baron; “that day, when I found you so depressed, there was another thing that worried you—how did you say it?—that your future was behind you! Is it still there, or is it in front, where it should be?”
“It is in front again,” said Selden with a smile, “due also to this wonderful woman.”
“I will not have it!” cried Rénee. “It was M. Scott’s idea.”
“But it was you who found a way to realize it.”
“It needed but a word!” she protested.
“Please tell me about it,” said the baron, who had watched this altercation with a smile.
“It was like this,” Rénee explained. “It is true that at one moment this imbecile was so stupid as to think his career ended. He permitted himself to become discouraged because he could not, all at once, persuade his country to think as he did—to make it think, as he calls it, internationally.”