Thinking of the manner in which she had without question turned her money over to him Rupert felt doubtful.
"You had better keep two or three sovereigns," he observed.
"I fancy so," she agreed. "There is always money wanting now, and you might not be in the way."
He looked at her across the table, and then bent down his head over the notes and gold.
Incredible as it may seem, there was something in the woman's face—though she was utterly ignorant of its presence—which touched Rupert's nature to its best and deepest depths, wringing his heart-strings.
If he had known what that something prefigured, if God had only for one moment given him prescience that night, the man's memory might have failed to hold something which shall never depart from him now till life is extinguished with it.
As it was he exclaimed,
"I would to Heaven, Dolly, I had passed all my life with you and Archie. I should in that case have been as unmercenary and unselfish as you."
"Rather," said Dolly sententiously, "you should thank Heaven for having placed you in one of this world's strictest schools. Otherwise you might have been a simpleton like myself, or a clever idiot like dear Archie, but you would never have been a man who shall make his way to success as you intend to do."
"How shall I make my way to success?" he inquired.