It was true, she realized, without resentment; he had forgotten that she was present. Since she had little vanity, she was not hurt. It was only one of those delicious morsels that life continually offered to one's sense of humour.
"I am not quite so dull, perhaps, as you think me," she responded pleasantly. After all, though intelligence was sometimes out of place, she had discovered that pleasantness was always a serviceable quality.
At this he rose from his chair, laughing. "You must not, by the way, get a wrong impression of me. I have been talking as if money did not count, and yet there was a time when I'd willingly have given twenty years of my life for it. Money meant to me power—the kind of power one could grasp by striving and sacrifice. Why, I've walked the streets of Richmond with five cents in my pocket, and the dream of uncounted millions in my brain. When my luck turned, and it turned quickly as luck runs, I thought for a year or two that I'd got the thing that I wanted——"
"And you found out that you hadn't?"
"Oh, yes, I found out that I hadn't," he rejoined drily, as he moved toward the door, "and I've been making discoveries like that ever since. To-day I might tell you that work, not wealth, brings happiness, but I've been wrong often enough before, and who knows that I am not wrong about this." It was the tone of bitterness she had learned to watch for whenever she talked with him—the tone that she recognized as the subtle flavour of Angelica's influence. "Now I'll find Mary," he added, "and ask her if she saw the doctor this morning. The reading I heard as I came up, I suppose was for her benefit?"
"I don't know," replied Caroline, wondering if she ought to keep him from interrupting a play of Alan's. "I think Mr. Wythe had promised to read something to Mrs. Blackburn."
"Oh, well, Mary must be about, and I'll find her. She couldn't sleep last night and I thought her looking fagged."
"Yes, she hasn't been well. Mrs. Timberlake has tried to persuade her to take a tonic."
For a minute he hesitated. "There hasn't been any trouble, I hope. Anything I could straighten out?" He looked curiously young and embarrassed as he put the question.
"Nothing that I know of. I think she feels a little nervous and let-down, that's all."