arrived; it was for Gwendolen, and I called on her in time to save
her the trouble of bringing it to me. She didn't read it out, as
was natural enough; but she repeated to me what it chiefly
embodied. This consisted of the remarkable statement that he'd
tell her after they were married exactly what she wanted to know.

"Only THEN, when I'm his wife--not before," she explained. "It's
tantamount to saying--isn't it?--that I must marry him straight
off!" She smiled at me while I flushed with disappointment, a
vision of fresh delay that made me at first unconscious of my
surprise. It seemed more than a hint that on me as well he would
impose some tiresome condition. Suddenly, while she reported
several more things from his letter, I remembered what he had told
me before going away. He had found Mr. Vereker deliriously
interesting and his own possession of the secret a real
intoxication. The buried treasure was all gold and gems. Now that
it was there it seemed to grow and grow before him; it would have
been, through all time and taking all tongues, one of the most
wonderful flowers of literary art. Nothing, in especial, once you
were face to face with it, could show for more consummately DONE.
When once it came out it came out, was there with a splendour that
made you ashamed; and there hadn't been, save in the bottomless
vulgarity of the age, with every one tasteless and tainted, every
sense stopped, the smallest reason why it should have been
overlooked. It was great, yet so simple, was simple, yet so great,
and the final knowledge of it was an experience quite apart. He
intimated that the charm of such an experience, the desire to drain
it, in its freshness, to the last drop, was what kept him there
close to the source. Gwendolen, frankly radiant as she tossed me
these fragments, showed the elation of a prospect more assured than