“But it was just the reverse of that,” he cried eagerly. “Just the reverse, remember. I came to confirm your dream, and you received from my hand the first of your fortune.”
“Yes,” she admitted, her eyes fixed on the sidewalk.
“I see how it was,” he continued enthusiastically. “I suppose you had never drawn a check before.”
“And this was merely a test. You set up your dream against the hard common sense of a bank, which has no dreams. You were to transform your vision into the actual, or find it vanish. When the commonplace cashier passed forth the coin, their jingle said to you, ‘The supposed phantasy is real,’ but the gold pieces themselves at that supreme moment meant no more to you than so many worthless counters, so you turned your back upon them.”
She looked up at him, her eyes, though moist, illumined with pleasure inspired by the sympathy in his tones rather than the import of his words. The girl’s life heretofore had been as scant of kindness as of cash, and there was a deep sincerity in his voice which was as refreshing to her lonesome heart as it was new to her experience. This man was not so stupid as he had pretended to be. He had accurately divined the inner meaning of what had happened. She had forgotten the necessity for haste which had been so importunate a few minutes before.
“No, I am not at all a clever person,” he laughed. “Indeed, as I told you, I am always blundering into trouble, and making things uncomfortable for my friends. I regret to say I am rather under a cloud just now in the service, and I have been called upon to endure the frown of my superiors.”
“Why, what has happened?” she asked. After their temporary halt at the corner where they had been overtaken, they now strolled along together like old friends, her prohibition out of mind.
“Well, you see, I was temporarily in command of the cruiser coming down the Baltic, and passing an island rock a few miles away, I thought it would be a good opportunity to test a new gun that had been put aboard when we left England. The sea was very calm, and the rock most temptsome. Of course I knew it was Russian territory, but who could have imagined that such a point in space was inhabited by anything else than sea-gulls.”