Seating himself in his armchair, he spread out his thin old hands to the bright fire, and watched Reay as he stood near the hearth, leaning one arm easily against a rough beam which ran across the chimney piece.
"She is a wonderful woman!" went on Reay, musingly; "She has a power of which she is scarcely conscious." "And what is that ?" asked Helmsley, slowly rubbing his hands with quite an abstracted air.
Angus laughed lightly, though a touch of colour reddened his bronzed cheeks.
"The power that the old alchemists sought and never could find!" he answered--"The touch that transmutes common metals to fine gold, and changes the every-day prose of life to poetry." Helmsley went on rubbing his hands slowly.
"It's so extraordinary, don't you think, David,"-- he continued--"that there should be such a woman as Miss Mary alive at all ?" Helmsley looked up at him questioningly, but said nothing.
"I mean,"-- and Angus threw out his hand with an impetuous gesture--"that considering all the abominable, farcical tricks women play nowadays, it is simply amazing to find one who is contented with a simple life like this, and who manages to make that simple life so gracious and beautiful!" Still Helmsley was silent.
"Now, just think of that girl I've told you about--Lucy Sorrel,"-- proceeded Angus--"Nothing would have contented her in all this world!" "Not even her old millionaire ?" suggested Helmsley, placidly.
"No, certainly not! Poor old devil! He'll soon find himself put on the shelf if he marries her.

He won't be able to call his soul his own! If he gives her diamonds, she'll want more diamonds--if he covers her and stuffs her with money, she'll never have enough! She'll want all she can get out of him while he lives and everything he has ever possessed when he's dead." Helmsley rubbed his hands more vigorously together.
"A very nice young lady," he murmured.

"Very nice indeed! But if you judge her in this way now, why did you ever fall in love with her ?" "She was pretty, David!" and Reay smiled--"That's all! My passion for her was skin-deep! And hers for me didn't even touch the cuticle! She was pretty--as pretty as a wax-doll,--perfect eyes, perfect hair, perfect figure, perfect complexion--ugh! how I hate perfection!" And taking up the poker, he gave a vigorous blow to a hard lump of coal in the grate, and split it into a blaze.
"I hate perfection!" he resumed--"Or rather, I hate what passes for perfection, for, as a matter of fact, there's nothing perfect.

And I specially and emphatically hate the woman that considers herself a 'beauty,' that gets herself photographed as a 'beauty,' that the press reporter speaks of as a 'beauty,'-- and that affronts you with her 'beauty' whenever you look at her, as though she were some sort of first-class goods for sale.

Now Miss Mary is a beautiful woman--and she doesn't seem to know it." "Her time for vanity is past,"-- said Helmsley, sententiously--"She is an old maid." "Old maid be shot!" exclaimed Angus, impetuously--"By Jove! Any man might be proud to marry her!" A keen, sharp glance, as incisive as any that ever flashed up and down the lines of a business ledger, gleamed from under Helmsley's fuzzy brows.
"Would you ?" he asked.
"Would I marry her ?" And Angus reddened suddenly like a boy--"Dear old David, bless you! That's just what I want you to help me to do!" For a moment such a great wave of triumph swept over Helmsley's soul that he could not speak.