"Look here, Karl, do you think you are wise to be a fool?"
"I prefer not to discuss this subject," Karl answered coldly. "You don't seem to understand my position. Why, it is absurd; I have seen this woman every day for years; met her and her husband; we have been good friends. That's all, absolutely, and had I thought of anything else I should laugh at myself. In wealth, position, everything, she is above me."
"No woman is above her own heart," Millar replied cynically. "Look at her. She is yours if you want her. Just stretch out your hand, my boy, and you have your warmth, your happiness, your joy, unspeakable joy, the most supreme joy possible to a human being, and you are too lazy to reach out your hand. Why, another man would toil night and day, risk life and limb for such a woman; yet she drops into your arms unsought—a found treasure."
Karl laughed bitterly.
"A found treasure," he repeated. "Perhaps that is why I am indifferent."
Millar moved over to where the young artist was seated on the couch and sat beside him. He leaned toward Karl and spoke low and earnestly, keeping his big, black, glittering eyes fixed on him.
"Last fall, on the 6th of September—I shall never forget the date—I had a singular experience," he said. "I put on an old suit of clothes—one I had not worn for some time—and as I picked up the waistcoat a sovereign dropped out from one of the pockets. It had been there no one knew how long. I picked it up, saying to myself, as I turned the gold piece over in my hand, 'I wonder when you got there?' It slipped through my fingers and rolled into some dark corner.
"I searched the room trying to find it, but my sovereign had gone. I became nervous. Again I searched, with no result. I became angry, took up the rugs, moved the furniture about, and I called my man to help me. I grew feverish with the one thought that I must have that sovereign. Suddenly a suspicion seized me. I sprang to my feet and cried to my servant, 'You thief, you have found the sovereign and put it back in your pocket.' He answered disrespectfully. I rushed at him. I saw a knife blade glimmer in his pocket and I drew a pistol—this pistol—from mine."
He drew a shining revolver from his hip pocket and laid it on the table at Karl's elbow.
"And with this pistol I nearly killed a man for a found sovereign which I did not need," he finished quietly.