There were loud exclamations of discomfiture on all sides, but the handsome young man never heard them.

He was still staring out of the window--staring without seeing--and the smile on his face had given place to an expression of deep wistfulness.
"Sometimes I wonder how I have dared to aspire to her love--the beautiful, petted daughter of a millionaire, and I only an assistant cashier on a very humble salary--ay, a salary so small that my whole year's earnings is less than the pin money she spends each month.
"If she were but poor like myself, how quickly I would make her mine.
How can I, how dare I, ask her to share my lot?
Will her father be amused, or terribly angry at my presumption?
"This sort of thing must stop.

I cannot be meeting my darling clandestinely any longer.

My honor forbids, my manhood cries out against it.
"But, oh, God! how the thought terrifies me that from the moment they find out that we have met, and are lovers, they will try to part us--tear my darling from me!" They had met in a very ordinary manner, but to the infatuated young lover it seemed the most ideal, most romantic of meetings.

The pretty little heiress had gone to the office of Marsh & Co.