"I saw Iréné yesterday," he said, "and we spoke of it. She is a noble woman, and the eagerness and delight with which she heard me speak of Anna made my eyes fill. She is altogether devoted now to her work in the cloister; she is absorbed in her boy, who seems to combine all the vigor of Chairo with her own gentleness; she teaches not only him but a class of boys of his age, and is doing a splendid work there. I have quite given up the idea that she will ever marry again."
It was pretty clear that, although Ariston was willing to admit he had given up the idea of marrying Iréné, he was not willing to admit that he was seriously entertaining the idea of marrying any one else. So I returned to our original subject:
"But how can Campbell hoard?" asked I. "Isn't your money valueless two years after its issue?"
"Yes, but Campbell has made a money of his own; besides, before he did this, he hoarded gold."
"But I thought all the gold was owned by the state and used exclusively for foreign exchanges?"
"So it is—as currency; but the state could not refuse to allow skillful workers in the precious metals to exercise their skill in ornaments, and so there comes into the market not only state manufacture of gold and silver, but also for some years past the products of individual enterprise. Don't you remember the beautiful necklace Neaera wears? Lydia, too; even Iréné wears a heavy bracelet of solid gold.
"And do you mean to say that Campbell hoards ornaments?"
"My dear fellow, there is nothing unusual in hoarding ornaments; most of the wealth of the Rajahs at the time of the conquest of India consisted of ornaments and precious stones; and later, the hoarding of ornaments by the natives constituted one of the financial difficulties with which the English Government had to contend. Then, too, a miser is not actuated by intelligence; he is the slave of an instinct—the hoarding instinct. He must hoard something, and as there is no gold coin to hoard, Campbell hoards gold ornaments."
We found that both Ann and Anna had left the tea-room, so we ventured to the inhospitable door of their apartment. Anna opened it to us and ushered us into a room where her father was sitting. He was a small man with an intelligent face, but the hair grew on his head in a manner that was characteristic; some people would have called him bald, but he was not bald; the hair was extremely thin, so thin that it gave his scalp the appearance of not being perfectly clean. He greeted us courteously and inquiringly, as though we could not have called upon him except for some definite purpose. So Ariston at once suggested that he and his family should join us that evening at Theodore's.