"Two? Do you dance until two every night?"
"What else? They lead such a purposeless life out here. We sometimes have classes--but they don't last long. I have almost forgotten that I once had a serious mind. But what would you? It is either society or suffrage. I won't be as serious as that yet. I mean to be young--but young! for five more years. Then I shall become a 'leader,' or vote for the President, or ride on a float in a suffrage parade dressed as the Goddess of Liberty, with my hair down."
He laughed, more and more relieved. "Yes, please remain young until you are twenty-five. By that time I hope the world will have adjusted itself and I shall have the leisure to companion you. Meanwhile, be a child. It is very refreshing to me. Come. I must lock this thing up. I have an interview here with Spaulding in about ten minutes."
She gave it up reluctantly, kissing it much as she had kissed him during their engagement; warm, lingering, but almost impersonal kisses. The ruby seemed miraculously to have restored her beaten youth.
She sat on the edge of a chair as he opened the safe and placed the jewel in its box and drawer.
"There is one other thing I wanted to ask," he said as he rose. "Is your allowance sufficient? It has sometimes occurred to me that you wanted more--for some feminine extravagance."
The light went out of her face. He wondered whimsically if he had locked it in with the ruby, and once more he was conscious that something intangible floated between them. But she looked at him squarely with her shadowed eyes.
"Oh, one could spend any amount, of course, but I really have quite enough."
"You shall have double your present allowance when these cursed times improve. And I have always intended to settle a couple of hundred thousand on you--a quarter of a million--as soon as I could realize without loss on certain investments. But one day I want you to be quite independent."
Her eyes had opened very wide. "A quarter of a million? And it would be all my own? I could do anything with it I liked?"
"Well--I think I should put it in trust. I haven't much faith in the resistance of your sex to tempting investments promising a high rate of interest."
"I have heard you say that when rich men die the amount of worthless stock found in their safe deposit boxes passes belief."