"Where? How?" He winced--the past reaching inexorably into the future.
Jasper Penny made no attempt to ignore, forget, his responsibility; he
admitted it to her; but at the same time the tyrannical hunger increased
within him--the mingled desire for fresh paths and the nostalgia of the
old freedom of spirit. But life, that had made him, had in the same
degree created Essie; neither had been the result of the other; they had
been swept together, descended blindly in company, submerged in the
passion that he had thought must last forever, but which had burned to
ashes, to nothing more than a vague sense of putrefaction in life.

"Thank you," he said formally, putting away the note book. "Something,
of course, must be done; but what, I can only say after I have seen
Eunice. I am, undoubtedly, more to blame than yourself."

"I suppose, in this holy strain, you'll end by giving her all and me
nothing."

"... what you are getting as long as you live?"

"That's little enough, when I hear how much you have, what all that iron
is bringing you. Why, you could let me have twenty, thirty thousand, and
never know it."

"If you are unable to get on, that too will be rectified."

"You are really not a bad old thing, Jasper," she pronounced, mollified.
"At one time--do you remember?--you said if ever the chance came you
would marry me. Ah, you needn't fear, I wouldn't have you with all your
iron, gold. I--" she stopped abruptly, uneasily. "Not a bad old thing,"
she repeated, moving to secure a half-full glass.