[Ill.u.s.tration]
Then your wife suddenly reaches out her hand and touches you furtively.
"Oh, buy it," she whispers, huskily, "if you can." And then she gathers up her skirts and hurries into the house.
Then a little later you are all in the library, and you have signed a little plain strip of paper, headed "Memorandum of Sale." And then you and the agent have drunk a gla.s.s of wine to bind the bargain, and then the agent is gone, and you and your wife are left standing there, looking at each other with misty eyes and questioning smiles, happy and yet doubtful if you have done right or wrong.
But what does it matter, my dear Modestus?
For you could not help yourselves.