perience. Mrs.
St. Pierre Lawrence, for the first time in her life, was not sure of
herself.

"Now I hope you have not come on business," she added, drawing forward
her own chair and passing a quick hand over her hair. "Bother business!
Do not let us think about it."

"Not exactly," replied Turner, recovering his breath. "Quite agree with
you. Let us say, 'Bother business,' and not think of it. Though, for an
old man who is getting stout, there is nothing much left but business
and his dinner, eh?"

"No. Do not say that," cried the lady. "Never say that. It is time
enough to think that years hence when we are all white-haired. But I
used to think that myself once, you know. When I first had my money. Do
you remember? I was so pleased to have all that wealth that I determined
to learn all about cheque-books and things and manage it myself. So
you taught me, and at last you admitted that I was an excellent man of
business. I know I thought I was myself. And I suppose I lapsed into a
regular business woman and only thought of money and how to increase it.
How horrid you must have thought me!"

"Never did that," protested Turner, stoutly.

"But I know I learnt to think much too much about it," Mrs. St. Pierre
Lawrence went on eagerly. "And now that it is all gone, I do not care
THAT for it."

She snapped her finger and thumb and laughed gaily.

"Not that," she repeated. She turned and glanced at Dormer Colville,
raising her eyebrows in some mute interrogation only comprehensible to
him. "Shall I tell him?" she asked, with a laugh of happiness not very
far removed from tears. Then she turned to the banker again.

"Listen," she said. "I am going to tell you something which no one else
in the world can tell you. Dormer and I are going to be married. I dare
say lots of people will say that they have expected it for a long time.
They can say what they like. We don't care. And I am glad that you are
the first person to hear it. We have only just settled it, so you are
the very first to be told. And I am glad to tell you before anybody
else because you have been so kind to me always. You have been my best
friend, I think. And the kindest thing you ever did for me was to lose
my money, for if you had not lost it, Dormer never would have asked me
to marry him. He has just said so himself. And I suppose all men feel
that. All the nice ones, I mean. It is one of the drawbacks of being
rich, is it not?"

"I suppose it is,"