"Well, you women have a way of your own of deciding a question."
My wife was too shrewd not to make a point in her favor, and she remarked, with a complacent nod, "I have a way of my own, but there are women in the world who would have insisted on a smart new house."
"Little wife," I said, laughing, "there was another girl that I was a little sweet on before I met you. I'm glad you are not the other girl."
She put her head a little to one side with the old roguish look which used to be so distracting when the question of questions with me was whether pretty Winnie Barlow would give half a dozen young fellows the go-by for my sake, and she said, "Perhaps the other girl is glad too."
"I've no doubt she is," I sighed, "for her husband is getting rich. I don't care how glad she is if my girl is not sorry."
"You do amuse me so, Robert! You'd like to pass for something of a philosopher, with your brown studies into the hidden causes and reasons for things, yet you don't half know yet that when a woman sets her heart on something, she hasn't much left with which to long for anything else. That is, if she has a heart, which seems to be left out of some women."
"I think it is, and others get a double allowance. I should be content, for I was rich the moment I won yours."
"I've been more than content; I've been happy—happy all these years in city flats. Even in my tantrums and bad days I knew I was happy, deep in my heart."
"I only hope you will remain as blind about your plodding old husband who couldn't make a fortune in the city."
"I've seen men who made fortunes, and I've seen their wives too."