"Sarah is not quite ready. She wants to make herself very fine--the child! And Mr. Dround is late, too. I am glad, because it will give us a few minutes to ourselves. Come into the library." She led the way into a long, stately room, with a beautiful ceiling in wood and gold. At one end, in a little arched recess, a wood fire was blazing. There were a number of large paintings on the walls, and queer Eastern idols and curios in cabinets. Mr. Dround had the reputation of being something of a traveller and collector. My first glance around that room explained a good deal to me about the head of our firm. Mrs. Dround seated herself near the fire, where the light from a great candelabrum filled with candles flickered above her head. Her dark eyes gleamed under the black hair; it was a puzzle of a face! She began pretty soon to talk of Sarah in a natural but terribly shrewd way. "I wonder, Mr. Harrington, if you know your treasure," she said, half laughing. "It takes most men years to know the woman they marry, if they ever do." [Illustration: _She was reading me like a book of large print._] "Well, I know enough now to begin with!" "Sarah is such a woman--tender, loyal, loving. It needs a woman to know a woman, Mr. Harrington. But she hasn't a particle of practical sense: she can't keep an account straight. She has no idea what economy is--only want or plenty. She is Southern, so Southern! Those people never think what will happen day after to-morrow." It seemed queer that she should be telling me this kind of thing, which I should be finding out fast enough for myself before long. Perhaps she wanted to see what I would say; at any rate I replied clumsily something about not expecting to make a housekeeper of my wife. "Yet," she said slowly, studying me, "a woman can do so much to make or mar her husband's career." "I guess I shan't lay it up against my wife, if I don't pull out a winner." She laughed at that. "So you think you are strong enough to win a fight without a woman's help?" "I've done it so far," I said, thinking a little of May. "You have made a beginning, a good beginning," she remarked judiciously. She was reading me like a book of large print, leaning back in her great chair, her eyes half closed, her face in shade except when the firelight flashed. "I suppose the only way is to keep on as you begin--keep your eyes open and take everything in sight," I continued lightly. "It depends on how much you want, perhaps." "I want pretty much all that I can get," I retorted quickly, my eyes roving over the rich room, with an idea that I might like to put Sarah in some such place as this. Mrs. Dround laughed a long, low laugh, as though she were speculating why I was what I was. "Well, you are strong enough, my friend, I see. As for Sarah, love her and don't look for what you can't find."