him, she began to kindle with a sense
of the honor itself and the value of the opportunity. "It's a very high
compliment to you, Basil--a very high compliment. And you could give up
this wretched insurance business that you've always hated so, and that's
making you so unhappy now that you think they're going to take it
from you. Give it up and take Mr. Fulkerson's offer! It's a perfect
interposition, coming just at this time! Why, do it! Mercy!" she
suddenly arrested herself, "he wouldn't expect you to get along on the
possible profits?" Her face expressed the awfulness of the notion.

March smiled reassuringly, and waited to give himself the pleasure of
the sensation he meant to give her. "If I'll make striking phrases for
it and edit it, too, he'll give me four thousand dollars."

He leaned back in his chair, and stuck his hands deep into his pockets,
and watched his wife's face, luminous with the emotions that flashed
through her mind-doubt, joy, anxiety.

"Basil! You don't mean it! Why, take it! Take it instantly! Oh, what
a thing to happen! Oh, what luck! But you deserve it, if you first
suggested it. What an escape, what a triumph over all those hateful
insurance people! Oh, Basil, I'm afraid he'll change his mind! You ought
to have accepted on the spot. You might have known I would approve, and
you could so easily have taken it back if I didn't. Telegraph him now!
Run right out with the despatch--Or we can send Tom!"

In these imperatives of Mrs. March's there was always much of the
conditional. She meant that he should do what she said, if it were
entirely right; and she never meant to be considered as having urged
him.

"And suppose his enterprise went wrong?" her husband suggested.

"It won't go wrong. Hasn't he made a success of his syndicate?"

"He says so--yes."

"Very well, then, it stands to reason that he'll succeed in this, too.
He wouldn't undertake it if he didn't know it would succeed; he must
have capital."

"It will take a great deal to get such a thing going; and even if he's
got an Angel behind him--"

She caught at the word--"An Angel?"

"It's what the theatrical people call a financial backer. He dropped a
hint of something of that kind."

"Of course, he's got an Angel," said his wife, promptly adopting the
word. "And even if he hadn't, still, Basil, I should be willing to have
you risk it. The risk isn't so great, is it? We shouldn't be ruined
if it failed altogether. With our s