"Very well indeed, Nellie. Better than I could have hoped. Better than I deserved."
"Not better than you deserved, surely, dear," she said fondly. "That could not be."
"Well, better than I could have hoped. I am afraid, Nellie, I got on so splendidly that success has turned my head."
She looked at him in surprise and pressed his hand. "I know you better than to think success could turn your head."
"Nevertheless, my success has had such an effect on me that I have not brought you any flowers, or fruit, or a book. Does not that look like being spoiled by success? Should I not be spoiled by prosperity when I forgot you?"
"It does not follow," she said tenderly, as though she were excusing herself, not him, "that because you did not bring me something that you forgot me."
He put his hand in his pocket, took something out of it, and before she knew what he was doing she found a gold bracelet, having a circle of pearls round a large diamond, clasped upon her arm.
She gave a little cry of wonder and pleasure. "Why, what is this? Where did you get it? Whom is it for?"
"It is for my own wife Nellie. I bought it for her in Bond Street to-day, to show her that I did not forget her when away. And I did not buy it out of the money she lent me yesterday--for, look!" He threw into her lap a lot of gold and notes. "There's the hundred pounds I took with me to town--and look!" He held out towards her more gold and notes. "Here is another hundred I have got over and above what she lent me, and the price of the bracelet."
"Wonder upon wonder!" she cried with a laugh and a simple childlike joy in her husband's success. "Tell me all about the affair. Have you met fairies?"