"What a wonderful thing love is!"
The Chieftain's light eyebrows were elevated in interrogation.
"In connection with the `dear darling' previously mentioned, if one may
ask?"
"That was my father. I love him dearly, but just now I was thinking of
the other sort of love. This letter is from my eldest sister. She was
a beautiful girl, and could have married half a dozen rich men if she
had wished, but she chose the poorest of them all, a dear, good,
splendid man, who has been persistently unsuccessful all the way
through. Everything--financially speaking, I mean,--has been against
him. They have had continual anxiety and curtailment, until at last
they have had to let their pretty house and go into dingy lodgings. My
father is very down on Jack. He is a successful man himself, and don't
you think it needs a very fine nature to keep up faith in a person who
seems persistently to fail? But my sister never doubts. She loves her
husband more, and idealises him more, than on the day they were
married."
"And you call that man unsuccessful?"
Margot hardly recognised the low, earnest tones: her quick glance
downward surprised a spasm of pain on the chubby face, which she had
always associated with unruffled complacency. It appeared that here
also lay a hidden trouble, a secret grief carefully concealed from the
world.
"Isn't that rather a misuse of the word? A man who has gained and kept
such a love can never be called a failure by any one who understands the
true proportions of life. With all his monetary losses he is rich...
And she is rich also... Richer than she knows."
Margot's hand closed impulsively on Edith's letter and held it towards
him.
"Yes, you are right. Read that, and you will see how right you are.
There are no secrets in it--its just a word-photograph of Edith herself,
and I'd like you to see her, as you understand so well. She's my
dearest sister, whom I admire more than anybody in the world."
Mr Elgood took the letter without a word, and read over its contents
slowly once, and then, even more slowly, a second time. When at last he
had finished he still held the sheet in his hands, smoothing it out with
gentle, reverent fingers.
"Yes!" he said slowly. "I can see her. She is a beautiful creature. I
should like to know her in the flesh. You must introduce us to one
another some day. I haven't come across too many women like that in my
life. It would be an honour to know her, to help her, if that were
possible." He sighed, and stretching out his hand laid the letter on
Margot's knee. "You are right, Miss Bright Eyes, love is a wonderful
thing!"