Far better vocabulary than Waldron's, for example; and as for poor little Van Slyke, and that set, why this man's mind seems to have towered above them as the Palisades tower above the river! "Happy?
Rich?
He said he was both--and all he had was eighteen dollars and his two big hands! Just fancy that, will you?
He might as well have said eighteen cents; it would have been about as much! And I--what did I tell him?
I told him I, with all my money and everything, was vacant, empty, futile! Just those words.

And--God help me, I--I am!" Suddenly, she felt her eyes were wet.

What was the reason?
Herself she knew not.

All she knew was that with her beautiful and queenly head bowed on the arm of her Japanese silk morning gown, as its loose sleeves lay along the edge of the Chippendale table, she was crying like a child.
Crying bitterly; and yet in a kind of new, strange joy.

Crying with tears so bitter-sweet that she, herself, could not half understand them; could not fathom the deeper meaning that lay hidden there.
"If!" she whispered to her heart.