"Sometimes, when I have nothing to do and am here alone, I think how I would furnish this room if I could buy anything I saw, and could just say to some outside person, the way princesses do, 'I have bought so much; please pay the bill.' I've done it in white and gold, and in crimson with black wood, teak or ebony, very plain and heavy; and also in striped cretonnes with bunches of flowers, and little chairs and sofas with spindle legs. There's a great deal of satisfaction in it. It's almost as good as having it really happen." "It sounds very amusing," said Gault, as she paused; "but then, castles in the air," he added, turning to look at her, "are never quite the same as the real thing." "If you can't get the real thing, you take the castles in the air," she answered, smiling. "Tell me some more of yours." "Oh, they're just silly dreams, and mercenary ones, too. My castles are all built on a foundation of money. It's a dreadful thing to have to acknowledge, but I'm afraid I am mercenary. And it's such a horrid fault to have." "But isn't it rather a useful one?" he could not forbear asking. "Not so far. Once I had my palm read by a palmist, and he told me I was going to be very prosperous--to have great riches. That's one of my best castles in the air. I'm all the time wondering about it, and where my great riches are coming from." She spread both hands, palms up, on the table, and studied them as if trying to elicit further secrets from their delicately lined surfaces. "Great riches!" she repeated. "Where could a person suddenly find great riches? The mining booms are over, and in California people don't strike oil-wells in their gardens. I'm afraid it will have to be either begging, borrowing, or stealing. I wonder which I would succeed best in." With the last words she raised her bent head, and her eyes, diminished in size by her laughter, rested full on his. Their glance was clear, candid, and innocently mirthful as that of a merry child. As he stared at her, almost vacantly, the notes of a clock, striking somewhere in the back of the house, fell with crystalline distinctness upon the silence. "One--two--three--four--five," she counted absently, with each number touching the table with a finger-tip. Gault rose to his feet, remarking with unfeigned surprise on the lateness of the hour. She looked suddenly confused and annoyed at the realization of her unintentional rudeness, and asked him if he would not remain till her father's return. But he pleaded an engagement he had made to attend the tea given that afternoon by Mrs. Jerry McCormick, and, with a hand pressure and the conventional words of farewell, brought his visit to a close.