poor boy is!" she thought. "He overworks himself." But there was no
denying that his fine-drawn, keen red face, and his whole, long-limbed,
lank person had an air of breeding and distinction. And Mrs. Gould
relented.

"I only wondered what you felt," she murmured, gently.

During the last few days, as it happened, Charles Gould had been kept
too busy thinking twice before he spoke to have paid much attention to
the state of his feelings. But theirs was a successful match, and he had
no difficulty in finding his answer.

"The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my dear," he said,
lightly; and there was so much truth in that obscure phrase that he
experienced towards her at the moment a great increase of gratitude and
tenderness.

Mrs. Gould, however, did not seem to find this answer in the least
obscure. She brightened up delicately; already he had changed his tone.

"But there are facts. The worth of the mine--as a mine--is beyond doubt.
It shall make us very wealthy. The mere working of it is a matter of
technical knowledge, which I have--which ten thousand other men in the
world have. But its safety, its continued existence as an enterprise,
giving a return to men--to strangers, comparative strangers--who invest
money in it, is left altogether in my hands. I have inspired confidence
in a man of wealth and position. You seem to think this perfectly
natural--do you? Well, I don't know. I don't know why I have; but it is
a fact. This fact makes everything possible, because without it I would
never have thought of disregarding my father's wishes. I would never