“Please don’t mock at me. Honestly, don’t you think I’m commonplace?”

He gave her that fine, gentle smile of his, particularly fine coming from such a big, masculine sort of man. And he said, “Nothing that the sun shines on is commonplace.”

She developed strong curiosity as to the general aspects of his affairs—as to his hopes and fears for the future. Her efforts to draw him out on these subjects amused him. His frank confession that he was unknown in America threw her quite off the track; it never occurred to her that he might be known abroad. “And you have worked many years?” she said.

[38]“All my life.”

[38]

She looked tenderly sympathetic distress. “Doesn’t your not being recognized discourage you?” she said.

“Not a bit,” declared he, with every indication of sincerity. “Everything worth while takes time. Anyhow, I don’t much care. My living is secure. You see, I’m quite rich.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Rich!” she exclaimed. “Really? Why, I thought—” There she halted, blushing.

“Oh, yes. I’ve got forty thousand—not to speak of my land.”

“Forty—thousand—a year! That’s very good.” And her face revealed that her brain was busy and what it was busy about.

He laughed loudly. “Forty thousand a year!” he cried. “No—two thousand a year.”

Her chagrin was pitiful. “Oh!” she exclaimed dismally. “I thought you said you were rich.”

“And I am. Why, when I think of how I used to live on less than two thousand francs a year I feel like a Rothschild.” He tried to keep his face and his tone serious as he added: “What’s the matter? Why do you look so woe-begone?”

“Nothing. Only— You gave me such a shock! For a minute I thought you were—were different.”

[39]He took advantage of her mournful abstraction to slip back to his work. So absorbed was she that she did not observe how he was “cheating” her, though all his other attempts to do it had been promptly detected and stopped. From time to time he looked at her and puzzled over the cause of her deep gloom. Finally he decided to interrupt. A mischievous look came into his eyes. He said: “You thought of transferring yourself from that 

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