The rose-coloured glasses were still attached to Steve's naturally keen eyes. Like many persons he knew a multitude of facts but was quite ignorant concerning vital issues. He had spent his honeymoon in rapt and unreal fashion. He had realized his boyhood dream of returning to Nevada a rich and respected man with a fairy-princess sort of wife. The deadly anaesthesia of unreality which these get-rich-quick candidates of to-day indulge in at the outset of their struggle still had Steve in its clutch. He had not even stirred from out its influence. He had accomplished what he had set out to accomplish--and he was now about to realize that there is a distinct melancholy in the fact that everyone needs an Aladdin's window to finish. But under the influence of the anaesthesia he had proposed to have an everlasting good time the rest of his life, like the closing words of a fairy tale: "And then the beautiful young princess and the brave young prince, having slain the seven-headed monster, lived happily ever, ever after!" With this viewpoint, emphasized by the natural conceit of youth, Steve had passed his holiday with the Gorgeous Girl. "What did you want, darling?" he urged. "To talk to you--I want you to listen to my plan. You are to come with me to New York for the fall opera and all the theatres--oh, along in November. It's terribly dull here. Jill Briggs and her husband and some of the others are going, and we can take rooms at the Astor and all be together and have a wonderful time!" "I'd rather stay in our own home," he pleaded. "It's such fun to have a real home. We can entertain, you know. Besides, I'm the worker and you are the player, and I don't understand your sort of life any more than you can understand mine. So you must play and let me look on--and love me, that's all I'll ever ask." "You're a dear," was his reward; "but we'll go to New York?" "I'll have to take you down and leave you--I'm needed at the office." "But I'd be the odd one--I'd have to have a partner. Steve, dear, you don't have to grub. When we were engaged you always had time for me." "Because you had so little for me! And so I always shall have time for you," the anaesthesia causing his decision. "Besides, those were courtship days--and I wasn't quite so sure of you, which is the way of all men." He kissed her hair gently. She drew away and rearranged a lock. "I don't want a husband who won't play with me." "We'll fix it all right, don't worry. Now was that all you wanted?" "I want you to stay home and go driving with me. I want you to call on some people--and look at a new cellaret I'd like to buy. It is expensive, but no one else would have one anywhere near as charming. I need you this afternoon--you're so calm and strong, and my head aches. I'm always tired." "Yet you never work," he said, almost unconsciously.