d. In imagination, he saw it now. An
old-fashioned Boer farm, transformed into a modern mining camp. A
moonlight night. A man strolling idly along the rugged, desolate
veldt, chances to look down. His eye suddenly catches a gleam in the
rough face of the jagged slope. He stoops and picks up what looks like
a piece of ice. Quickly he returns to his office and hands it to his
chief. The men look at each other in silence. To all parts of the
world goes the message that a diamond has been found four times bigger
than the largest gem in the world. A stone weighing over 3,000 carats
and worth four million dollars. He could already imagine himself far
from civilization among the barren mountains of South Africa,
prospecting in wide stretches of stone and gravel, picking up the
brilliant dazzling stones by the handful.

"Have you any idea," he said, "what the mines have produced?"

She shook her head indifferently.

"No, and I don't want to know. I don't want you to go--that's all."

"Their output in the last ten years is estimated at no less than
$400,000,000. Just think of it. Four hundred millions! Well, dear, I
and a few others want some of it, and we're going to get it."

"But aren't we rich enough already?" she demanded petulantly. "Why
this fever to get richer and richer? We are happy with what we have.
Why run the risks to gain what after all will only be a surplus? We
can't possibly spend it."

Her husband's eyes flashed. The lines about his mouth tightened as he
retorted:

"One never has enough! You women don't understand. As long as you
have all the amusement you crave, all the frocks you want, all the
jewelry you covet, you think that is all there is to life."

She looked up at him reproachfully and seemed about to protest when he
added hurriedly:

"Oh, I don't mean you. I know you are not that kind of woman. You are
more serious, more sensible. I mean the average society woman whose
only concern in life is dress and show. We men have different aims,
higher ambitions. I'm well to do, as the term goes. I have an income
of over $100,000 a year, a splendidly appointed town house, a show
place in the country. Above all I have the most adorable wife in all
the world. Most men would be satisfied. I am not. I want still more.
I have the money craze, an uncontrollable lust to pile up millions. My
ambition is to wield the power that only the possession of vast wealth
confers. The r