In less than twenty-four hours London was abuzz! I hadn't anything to do, day after day, but sit at home, and say to all comers 'Yes; I told him to use my name. I know the man, and I know the mine. His character is above reproach, and the mine is worth far more than he asks for it.'

Meantime I spent all my evenings at the ambassador's with Portia. I didn't say a word to her about the mine; I saved it for a surprise. We talked salary; never anything but salary and love; sometimes love, sometimes salary, sometimes love and salary together.

And my! the interest the ambassador's wife and daughter took in our little affair, and the endless ingenuities they invented to save us from interruption, and to keep the ambassador in the dark and unsuspicious - well, it was just lovely of them!

When the month was up at last, I had a million dollars to my credit in the London and County Bank, and Hastings was fixed in the same way. Dressed in my best, I drove by the house in Portland Place, judged by the look of things that my birds were home again, went on to the ambassador's and got my precious, and we started back, talking salary with all our might. She was so excited and anxious that it made her just intolerably beautiful.