"I should not like that," said Helen, so decidedly that I looked with some surprise at the expression of her imperious face. "I should want to have everything, and give it all to him." "To whom? to Jack?" "Oh, dear me, no! You know what I mean." I understood her, and I made an involuntary grimace in thinking of mademoiselle's chaste teachings in the schoolroom. Here was a little girl of fourteen with her mind made up about what she would do for the lover who was to come out of Shadowland some day. "Don't you think that would be nicer, Floyd?" she asked. "For the girl to be rich, that she might make her husband rich? Some men would like that." "But what do you think?" A boy of nineteen is not so glib in speaking of marriage as a girl of fourteen, but I finally told her that I should not fancy the destiny of marrying a rich girl: then my imagination warmed, and I let her hear what my dream would be. She, the girl I loved, should be poor: very likely life would have been cruel to her, and she would have known cold and privation. What joy I should have in wrapping her in costly things, in setting off her beauty with ornaments appropriate and rare! What a light would shine in her eyes when I led her to the lovely house where we two were to dwell in Fairyland! Every duty in life should be taken from her: all she would have to do would be to grow more and more beautiful. I myself would be chief servant to this dainty little new-made queen, and not even the winds should be allowed to play too freely with her hair. Helen looked at me pensively, and Mr. Floyd, who was writing in the corner, laughed a low amused laugh which reminded me for a moment of Mephistopheles. "So you would like that?" mused Helen. "Do you know, I should not like it at all." "Well, you will never be poor," I retorted, "and you will give your golden key to some man who wants to marry a princess. But, to tell the truth, Helen, I don't expect to marry anybody: I think it is great nonsense. Both Harry and I have made up our minds to be bachelors." CHAPTER X.