My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I now
said: "Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my own
account?"

"Yes," he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaning
came to me only when it was too late. "I think, Blacklock, you'd better
turn them over to me."

"I can't," I answered. "I gave my word."

"As you please," said he.

Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the
performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty
minutes or so, he drifted away. "I envy you your enthusiasm," he said,
pausing in my doorway. "Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else.
Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you get
all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?"

He didn't wait for a reply.

I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to my
country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching,
searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me--what the lack
was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought beautiful,
had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, terraced
pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and slapped my
thigh. "A woman!" I exclaimed. "That's what I need. A woman--the right sort
of woman--a wife!"