To me the sum seemed ridiculously enormous. "Oh, I'm sure we could." "Well, that's what I've been thinking," he said, wistfully. "That figure was based on having the Brokenshire position to keep up. But if we were to live in Boston, where less would be expected of us, we could manage, I should think, on ten." Even that struck me as too much. "On five, Hugh," I declared, with confidence. "I know I could manage on five, and have everything we needed." He smiled at my eagerness. "Oh, well, darling, I sha'n't ask you to come down to that. Ten will be the least." To me this was riches. I saw the vision of the dainty dining-room again, and the nursery with the bassinet; but I saw Hugh also in the background, a little shadowy, perhaps, a little like a dream as an artist embodies it in a picture, and yet unmistakably himself. I spoke reservedly, however, far more reservedly than I felt, because I hadn't yet made my point quite clear to him. "I'm sure we could be comfortable on that. When you get it--" I hadn't realized that this was the detail as to which he was most sensitive. "There you go again! When I get it! Do you think I sha'n't get it?" I felt my eyebrows going up in surprise. "Why, no, Hugh, dear. I suppose you know what you can get and what you can't. I was only going to say that when you do get it I shall feel as if you were free to give yourself away, and that I shouldn't have"--I tried to smile at him--"and that I shouldn't have the air of--of stealing you from your family. Can't you see, dear? You keep quoting Libby Jaynes at me; but in my opinion she did steal Tracy Allen. That the Allens have made the best of it has nothing to do with the original theft." "Theft is a big word." "Not bigger than the thing. For Libby Jaynes it was possibly all right. I'm not condemning her. But it wouldn't be all right for me." "Why not? What's the difference?" "I can't explain it to you, Hugh, if you don't see it already. It's a difference of tradition." "But what's difference of tradition got to do with love? Since you admit that you love me, and I certainly love you--" "Yes, I admit that I love you, but love is not the only thing in the world." "It's the biggest thing in the world." "Possibly; and yet it isn't necessarily the surest guide in conduct. There's honor, for instance. If one had to take love without honor, or honor without love, surely one would choose the latter." "And what would you call love without honor in this case?" I reflected. "I'd call it doing this thing--getting engaged or married, whichever you like--just because we have the physical power to do it, and making the family, especially the father, to whom you're indebted for everything you are, unhappy." "He doesn't mind making you and me unhappy."