She twisted a little in her chair. "It--it has never been necessary," she said. "We began to make money at once. Really, Cresswell, Maud and I have prospered beyond our wildest dreams." "But suppose you had not. Is your prosperity the only reason you have not touched it? Would you have done so under any circumstances? That is what I have been asking myself for the past week, and am now asking you." She flushed uncertainly. "Ah," she said. "I can not answer you that. I can not tell. One never knows what one will do when the pinch comes." He smiled faintly. "I'll not put any more embarrassing questions to you, but confine myself to perfectly safe topics. You are looking very well." "I am well." "And happy? But there, that is hardly a safe topic, is it?" A sudden light came into her eyes, making them warm and softly bright. She smiled at him with a fresh, almost childlike enthusiasm. "Yes, I'm happy," she said, "happier than I've ever been in all my life. Why, Cresswell, it's been fun, fun. There's been lots of work, and lots of planning, but nevertheless, I've never enjoyed anything so much in my life. Often I go to bed at night tired out, but it's always with a comforting sense of satisfaction. It's all so varied and interesting, you know, but it isn't that that makes me happy." She clasped her hands and looked up at him with an unconscious appeal for sympathy and understanding in her eyes. "It's better than that, better than anything else. It's meant success, think of it, success. Not a horrid, little picayune one either, but a nice, big one." He leaned forward and looked at her curiously as if he really saw her for the first time. "Why, Dita," he exclaimed, "has it meant so much to you as that?" "Indeed, yes." There was ardor, fervor in her answering exclamation. "I can not tell you how much. I believe I was really morbid on the subject. I believed in failure as a real atmosphere always encompassing me. I had all manner of superstitions, beliefs about it. I believed that with all my strength and youth and energy, I was yet doomed by fate to a tomb of inaction. I seemed so futile, so ineffective. With a restless, active brain I accomplished nothing. You see that was such a dreadful experience, my attempt to earn my living before I married you, and I was so ignorant and inexperienced of every condition of life in which I found myself, that it prevented me from striking out boldly, from believing in myself. So I made the fatal mistake of beginning small, and began to paint all those wretched little articles, and it wasn't my _metier_ at all, Cresswell, really it wasn't, so, naturally, I failed. And," as if it had suddenly occurred to her, "I have found it so interesting to dress Miss Fleming. Designing her costumes has been fascinating."