"Heavens! they had their own royal yacht, their mountain house, their canoe house--the last a veritable palace in itself. I know. I have been at great feasts in it--though it was after their time. Nomare was dead, and no one knew where Graham was, and a king of collateral line was the ruler.
"I told you he out-barbaricked her. Their dinner service was gold.-- Oh, what's the use in telling any more. He was only a boy. She was half-English, half-Polynesian, and a really and truly queen. They were flowers of their races. They were a pair of wonderful children. They lived a fairy tale. And... well, Ernestine, the years have passed, and Evan Graham has passed from the realm of the young thing. It will be a remarkable woman that will ever infatuate him now. Besides, he's practically broke. Though he didn't wastrel his money. As much misfortune, and more, than anything else."
"Paula would be more his kind," Ernestine said meditatively.
"Yes, indeed," Dick agreed. "Paula, or any woman as remarkable as Paula, would attract him a thousand times more than all the sweet, young, lovely things like you in the world. We oldsters have our standards, you know."
"And I'll have to put up with the youngsters," Ernestine sighed.
"In the meantime, yes," he chuckled. "Remembering, always, that you, too, in time, may grow into the remarkable, mature woman, who can outfoot a man like Evan in a foot-race of love for possession."
"But I shall be married long before that," she pouted.
"Which will be your good fortune, my dear. And, now, good night. And you are not angry with me?"
She smiled pathetically and shook her head, put up her lips to be kissed, then said as they parted: "I promise not to be angry if you will only show me the way that in the end will lead me to ancient graybeards like you and Graham."
Dick Forrest, turning off lights as he went, penetrated the library, and, while selecting half a dozen reference volumes on mechanics and physics, smiled as if pleased with himself at recollection of the interview with his sister-in-law. He was confident that he had spoken in time and not a moment too soon. But, half way up the book-concealed spiral staircase that led to his work room, a remark of Ernestine, echoing in his consciousness, made him stop from very suddenness to lean his shoulder against the wall.--"Paula would be more his kind."