She regarded him steadily, and without emotion. "Exactly," she answered, "as I planned."
He was silent, returning her gaze. "Well," he rejoined at length, "if it is a matter for congratulation, then I congratulate you. Is he rich?"
"Oh, very," she responded. "You need hardly have asked me that?"
"Quite true," he answered. "Forgive my stupidity. And are you happy?"
"Why--yes," she replied more doubtfully, "I suppose so. I have a great deal. I desire more."
"That," he said, "is the chief trouble with all of us. That, in fact, was the reason for my recent undoing. I risked a moderate capital to gain a fortune, and was wiped out. I lost everything--hook, line and sinker."
"I am so sorry," she answered. "Was it in stocks?"
"Next door to it," he responded. "It was January cotton. By every test in the world, by reasoning, by statistical information, by the opinion of the trade, by the advice of brokers, by every known method of determining values, January cotton was the greatest purchase in the universe. It had to go up, that was all there was to it. It was mathematically impossible for it to stay down. So I bought it, bought it up to my eyebrows; and so, I imagine, did every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Street. Result, a hundred and fifty point drop, swift and sudden as a hurricane, and when it was over, scattered heaps of financial corpses, of which I had the honor to be one. I had money, desired more; and got--what I deserved."
She sighed sympathetically. "I only wish," she murmured, more to herself than to him, "that I had known."
He regarded her with frank amazement. "What could you have done?" he queried. "Prevented me from losing?"