"Yes, I've come up, but this is the crisis. If I slip now, if I make a false move, if I draw out, I'm as dead as a door-nail. But give me five or ten years of hard work and breathless thinking, and I'll be as big a man as the General." "As the General?" she repeated gently, and played with the petals of an American Beauty rose on the table beside her. "As soon as I'm secure, as soon as I can slacken work a bit, I'm going to cut all this and take you away. We'll have a second honeymoon when that time comes." "In five or ten years?" "Perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, isn't there something that I can do for you? Is there anything on God's earth that you want? Would you like a string of pearls?" She shook her head with a laugh. "No, I don't want a string of pearls. Is it time now to dress for dinner?" "Would you mind if I didn't change, dear? I'm so tired that I shall probably fall asleep over the dessert." An evening or two later, when I came up after seven o'clock, I thought that she had been crying, and taking her in my arms, I passionately kissed the tear marks away. "There's but one thing to do, Sally. You must go away. What do you say to Europe?" "With you?" "I wish to heaven it could be with me, but if I shirk this deal now, I'm done for, and if I stick it out, it may mean future millions. Why not ask Bessy Dandridge?" "I don't think I want to go with Bessy Dandridge." Her tone troubled me, it was so gentle, so reserved, and walking to the window, I stood gazing out upon the April rain that dripped softly through the budding sycamores. I felt that I ought to go, and yet I knew that unless I gave up my career, it was out of the question. The railroad deal was, as I had said, very important, and if I were to withdraw from it now, it would probably collapse and bring down on me the odium of my associates. After my desperate failure of less than five years ago, I was just recovering my ground, and the incidents of that disaster were still too recent to permit me to breathe freely. My name had suffered little because my personal tragedy had been regarded as a part of the general panic, and I had, in the words of George Bolingbroke, "gone to smashes with honour." Yet I was not secure now; I had not reached the top of the ladder, but was merely mounting. "It's for Sally's sake that I'm doing it," I said to myself, suddenly comforted by the reflection; "without Sally the whole thing might go to ruin and I wouldn't hold up my hand. But I must make her proud of me. I must justify her choice in the eyes of her friends." And the balm of this thought seemed to lighten my weight of trouble and to appease my conscience. "It isn't as if I were doing it for myself, or my own ambition. I am really doing it for her--everything is for her. If I can hold on now, in a few years I'll give her millions to spend." Then I remembered that the last time I had gone motoring with her it had appeared to do her good, and that she had remarked she preferred a car