presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his
voice:

"The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have
always been men to say to trouble, 'I am master, I have the mind to get
above it all.' Well, I am one of them."

There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this,
and in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in this
instant he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone on
earth. Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financier
had said to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, to be
of use to him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child
had left him, he had said, "Moi je suis philosophe!" but he was a man of
wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare
degree. Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a
philosopher?

"Well, I've done what I thought would help you, and I can't say more than
that," Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency in her
eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she looked at
him as she had done in Maitre Fille's office, and a wave of feeling
passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in response to
her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face now flushed
also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside him. He put it
away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-who could tell what
to-morrow might bring forth!--and then he held out his hand to her. His
voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, and began to ring,
before he had said a dozen words.