He nodded. "You understand him surprisingly well—considering that you love him," he added smiling.
She returned the smile. "That's why I understand, isn't it?"
"Perhaps——"
He watched her move about the room, contentedly. Julian was a lucky dog! Luckier than he knew, to win a girl like that—sweet and sensible and poor!
"I will mail this now," she said. She took it from the stand.
He watched her go, and looked out of the window, and fell to thinking of the things life was bringing him.... Everything seemed coming to him out of this great, comfortable hospital—that he had looked forward to with dread!... A wife for Julian—He might have searched the world over to find a girl like that! Straight, and as true as steel, and best of all—she was poor; she would know the value of money. She had had to work for it— He had always spoiled Julian. He knew it, guiltily. Julian had never known what it was to want for anything that money could get—except, perhaps, a widow or two! The millionaire's lips smiled grimly. That danger was over—thank Heaven! The boy would marry a poor girl—and a lady!... Herman Medfield had perhaps old-fashioned ideas as to what makes a lady; and the nurse who moved so noiselessly about his room suited him to perfection.... His thought dwelt on her happily.... Then there was this man, Dalton—Thanks to Aunt Jane!... Ah, that was the secret! "Thanks to Aunt Jane!"
The millionaire leaned back in his chair, smiling thoughtfully. He had known that he was coming to that—as he sat there in the window, looking idly down into the little squares of back yards—he had known all along—under his thankfulness for Julian—that he was coming to the thought of Aunt Jane.... He had held it to the last.... It was not Julian he was thinking of now—with the little smile that kept coming to his lips.
He was smiling at Aunt Jane and her crispness and her goodness and her little managing wilful ways that kept him straight.... He was like a small boy in the very thought of her. A man ought to feel that way toward his wife, he told himself—all men really feel like that!
There was a gentle tap on the door and he sat up. He smoothed the dreams from his face.
"Come in!"