He tried not to look at
her, and hurriedly began buttoning his coat before starting on his cold
way home. In drawing his coat closer, his hand came in contact with the
pearls which he had forgotten. He drew them out and hung them again
around her neck. She thanked him with a smile, but he saw that she
scarcely looked at them, that she was thinking only of her love and her
lover, though she held his hand and walked beside him to the front door.
From it they could see dimly and were able to make out the black bulk of
the boat lying far out in the river beside the island. As he looked at
it a feeling of the worthlessness of all that he owned swept over him,
overwhelming him with despair. All the gold that he had gathered, or
ever could gather, would be worthless yellow dust if he might not use it
to give her comfort or pleasure or happiness. He realized suddenly that
this was everything that his riches had meant to him ever since she had
wound herself around his heart. Money could do little for him; he was
weary and old and sad and had come to feel--as every rich man must come
to feel sooner or later--that for himself his riches meant, after all,
only food and clothes.
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