There was a sobbing little flutter in Virginia's throat. In a dim way she was glad to see that the girls were going. She _could_ not have them laughing at him--now. “Well, you can about figure out how it makes me feel,” he continued, and looking into his face now it was as though the spirit redeemed the flesh. “You're smart. You can see it without my callin' your attention to it. Last time I went to see her I had just made fifty thousand on a deal. And I found her down on her knees thinking she was scrubbing the floor!” Unconsciously Virginia's hand went out, following the rush of sympathy and understanding. “But can't they--restrain her?” she murmured. “Makes her worse. Says she's got it to do--frets her to think she's not getting it done.” “But isn't there some _way_?” she whispered. “Some way to make her _know_?” He pointed to the large boxes. “That,” he said simply, “is the meaning of those. It's been seven years--but I keep on trying.” She was silent, the tears too close for words. And she had thought it cheap ambition!--vulgar aspiration--silly show--vanity! “Suppose you thought I was a queer one, talking about lively looking things. But you see now? Thought it might attract her attention, thought something real gorgeous like this might impress money on her. Though I don't know,”--he seemed to grow weary as he told it; “I got her a lot of diamonds, thinking they might interest her, and she thought she'd stolen 'em, and they had to take them away.” Still the girl did not speak. Her hand was shading her eyes. “But there's nothing like trying. Nothing like keeping right on trying. And anyhow--a fellow likes to think he's taking his wife something from Paris.” They passed before her in their heartbreaking folly, their tragic uselessness, their lovable absurdity and stinging irony--those things they had bought that afternoon: an _opera cloak_--a _velvet dress_--_those hats_--_red silk stockings_. The mockery of them wrung her heart. Right there in the tea-shop Virginia was softly crying. “Oh, now that's too bad,” he expostulated clumsily. “Why, look here, Young Lady, I didn't mean you to take it so hard.” When she had recovered herself he told her much of the story. And the thing which revealed him--glorified him--was less the grief he gave to it than the way he saw it. “It's the cursed unfairness of it,” he concluded. “When you consider it's all because she did those things--when you think of her bein' bound to 'em for life just because she was _too faithful doin' 'em_--when you think that now--when I could give her everything these women have got!--she's got to go right on worrying about baking the bread and washing the dishes--did it for me when I was poor--and now with me rich she can't get _out_ of it--and I _can't reach_ her--oh, it's _rotten!_ I tell you it's _rotten!_ Sometimes I can just hear my money _laugh_ at me! Sometimes I get to going round and round in a circle about it till it seems I'm going crazy myself.”