"I know--I know," she answered. They had no quarrels. There was only one matter in which she deviated so much as a hair's breadth from his ideal of her and there was but one occasion when she was hurt by any act of his. The first of these affairs sprang from a conversation started by a letter with a blue French twenty-five-centime stamp upon it, which their always discreet waiter brought to the rooms one morning with the coffee. It had been forwarded from New York. "What's that?" asked Muriel. Stainton had been reading with his iron-grey brows in a pucker and a smile on his lips. "It is a Frenchman trying to write English," he said. "He doesn't succeed." "Yes, but what _is_ it?" "Only business, dear." "Then I ought to see it," said Muriel. Stainton laughed. "What?" he said. "If it is business, I ought to see it," she repeated. "Trouble your little head with such matters? Not much." She came to him as if to kiss him, then quickly seized the letter and ran laughing away. He pursued her, laughing, too; but she was more agile than her husband, and she managed easily to evade him until her eyes had caught enough of the letter to enable her to guess its entire contents. "So they want to buy your mine?" she asked. "They say their expert has returned and reported"--she glanced again at the letter as his fingers closed on it--"reported favourably." "Yes," he said; "it's a French syndicate, some wealthy men in Lyons, and they want to buy the mine." "But you won't sell?" "If I can get my figure, I will." "Your mine?" "Our mine." For that she kissed him. "But, if it's ours, I have something to say about it, and I won't let you." "Why not?" he asked, smiling at her pretty assumption. "Because I think it would be horrid of you to sell it after all the years you spent looking for it." "I wasn't looking for it on its own account, dear; I was looking for it because of what it would bring me." "I wish you'd take me to see it." "It's a dull place, Muriel." "I wish you'd take me. I wouldn't find it dull." "I shall take you to France instead." "To sell the mine?" "To try." "Horrid!" she pouted. "But, dearest," he explained, "I don't want to have a mine on my hands. I have you." "Do I keep you busy?" "You are a gold mine. Don't you see? I want to be free. If I can get my price, we shall be rich." "I thought we were rich now." "With a mine run by an agent, yes. But if I sold to this syndicate--now, you mustn't talk about this outside, you know----" "Of course I know." "Or write it home." "Of course not." "Well, then, if these people buy, we shall be rich without any more agents or any more work. I have had enough of mining to make me certain that I don't want to chain any son of mine down to the business." "Any----" The word turned her suddenly white. In the midst of the intimacies of the honeymoon, reference to children painted her cheeks with scarlet.