“I always prayed that I might hear you say it,” she answered, “but it seems—oh, it seems so one-sided! Here am I starving and penniless, and you—you, I suppose, are well on the way towards the success you worshiped.”
“I am well on the way,” he said, earnestly, “towards something greater, Beatrice. I am well on the way towards understanding what success really is, what things count and what don't. I have even found out,” he whispered, “the thing which counts for more than anything else in the world, and now that I have found it out, I shall never let it go again.”
He pressed her hand and she looked across the table at him with swimming eyes. The waiter, who had been approaching, turned discreetly away. The band started to play a fresh tune. From down in the streets came the clanging of the cars. A curious, cosmopolitan murmur of sounds, but between those two there was the wonderful silence.