‘My poor little child, all is well, don’t cry: there, there! I have done great things to-night, and if you are very careful our fortune’s made. To-morrow we go down to the place on the river Guaschaci has lent us; but my little wife will have to be very obedient, and do exactly what her husband tells her. Does she promise not to cry any more, and not to spoil her pretty eyes?’ He held her face between his hands, and kissed her on the mouth. ‘Yes, yes, George, anything. I will do anything you tell me, only promise me never to leave me again like this. It makes me so unhappy.’ ‘My darling, I never will; but you should trust me.’ She threw her arms round his neck passionately, ‘I do, George, I do. God knows what will become of me if I ever lose that trust.’ ‘My sweet love!’ and he sat down on the bed. ‘Now tell me. Do you remember the simple little cotton dress you wore when I first saw you on the stage, and when you stole my heart from me all at once, before I had time to realise my danger? Do you remember it?’ ‘Yes, George, of course I do, of course I do.’ ‘Well, what do you think I have in my head?’ ‘I can’t think. O George! are you going to let me go back on the stage, and earn money to keep you out of this miserable poverty?’ ‘Pooh! child, what would five pounds a week be to a man like me? That’s no good. No, now listen. In this world the only way to make money is to be supposed to have money. If I can really get the position which is mine by right, and from which my cursed ill-luck cut me off six years ago, when that affair about the duel with Prince Blank, I told you about, came out, the world will be at my feet: I shall be in a position which will be unassailable, because it will be founded on a rock. My exile has been useful to me in this way, it has enabled me to find out secrets which will be invaluable to me; secrets which will make me feared by the leaders of society.’ ‘O George, but that sounds dreadful!’ ‘My Gracie knows her husband would disdain to use the knowledge in his possession. Of all blackguards the blackmailer is the lowest. But there are certainly delicate means of working things, called wire-pulling in diplomatic circles, which have a certain charm--a sensation between that of a spider weaving its web and the pleasure of exercising skill experienced by the consummate chess-player. This is a feeling not ignoble; it is one shared by all great statesmen. It is the exercise of this power that evolved the Conqueror of Europe from the Corsican soldier. My wife must learn that all success is the result of carefully adjusted combinations. She must learn to know that to help her husband, and herself, she must exercise inviolable secrecy and enduring self-control.’ ‘O George, can I help you? Will you trust me? Oh, how happy, how happy you make me!’ ‘You can and shall; but at first secretly, and in a way which would make an ordinary woman quail.’