Clotilde reminded him that a portion of money would be brought to the
store by her.

'We don't count it,' said he. 'Not rich, certainly. And you will not
expect me to make money by my pen. Above all things I detest the writing
for money. Fiction and verse appeal to a besotted public, that judges of
the merit of the work by the standard of its taste: avaunt! And
journalism for money is Egyptian bondage. No slavery is comparable to
the chains of hired journalism. My pen is my fountain--the key of me;
and I give my self, I do not sell. I write when I have matter in me and
in the direction it presses for, otherwise not one word!'

'I would never ask you to sell yourself,' said Clotilde. 'I would rather
be in want of common comforts.'

He squeezed her wrist. They were again in front of the black-draped
blighted tree. It was the sole tree of the host clad thus in scurf
bearing a semblance of livid metal. They looked at it as having seen it
before, and passed on.

'But the wife of Sigismund Alvan will not be poor in renown!' he resumed,
radiating his full bloom on her.

'My highest ambition is to be Sigismund Alvan's wife!' she exclaimed.

To hear her was as good as wine, and his heart came out on a genial
chuckle. 'Ay, the choice you have made is not, by heaven, so bad.
Sigismund Alvan's wife shall take the foremost place of all. Look at
me.' He lifted his head to the highest on his shoulders, widening his