Gabriel Cassilis looked at his visitor with a little pang of jealousy. This, then, was the man with whom his wife's name had been coupled. To be sure, it was a censorious world; but then he was a handsome fellow, and a quarter of a century younger than himself. However, he put away the thought, and tapped his knuckles with his double glasses while he talked.
To-day, whether from fatigue or from care, he was not quite himself; not the self-possessed man of clear business mind that he wished to appear. Perhaps something had gone wrong.
Lawrence and Mrs. Cassilis, or rather the latter, began talking about days of very long ago, so that her husband found himself out of the conversation. This made him uneasy, and less useful when the talk came within his reach. But his wife was considerate--made allowances, so to speak, for age and fatigue; and Lawrence noted that he was fond and proud of her.
"I can't help it," he said. "I wish I couldn't feel anything about it, one way or the other. Victoria has gone off, and I wonder how in the world---- And now she has made a fool of herself. It is not my fault. Some day it will all come out. And I am an accessory after the fact. If it were not for that Phillis girl--I must see after her--and she is pretty enough to keep any man in town--I would go back to America again, if it were to Empire City."
"Now you set your foot on shore In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru; And there, within, sir, are the golden mines, Great Solomon's Ophir."
Unlimited credit! Wealth without bound! Power to gratify any desire--all desires! That was the luck of the Golden Butterfly. No wish within the reach of man that Gilead Beck could not gratify. No project or plan within limits far, far beyond what are generally supposed reasonable, that he could not carry out. Take your own case, brother of mine, struggling to realise the modest ambitions common to cultured humanity, and to force them within the bounds of a slender income. Think of the thousand and one things you want; think of the conditions of your life you would wished changed; think of the generous aspirations you would gratify: think of the revenges, malices, envies, hatreds, which you would be able to satiate--_had you the wealth which gives the power_. Then suppose yourself suddenly possessed of that wealth, and think what you would do with it.