at's
one of he things Mr. March told me about you," she added with the
playful purpose of surprising him again. "Only I happened to know that
for myself."

"It's more than I can be sure of," he said. "I've been full of bravado
with Paula, telling her how soon I was going to be back in harness again;
cock-sure and domineering as ever, so that she'd better make hay while
the sun shone. But it was I, nevertheless, who made her go home so that
she could start to work--when the whistle blew. Some one was going to
have to support the family, I told her, and it didn't look as if it were
going to be me."

This speech, though it ended in jest, had begun, she knew, in earnest. He
meant her to understand that, and left her to judge for herself where the
dividing line fell. She answered in a tone as light as his, "Paula could
do it easily enough." But she was not satisfied with the way he took it.
The mere quality of the silence must have told her something. She turned
upon him with sudden intensity and said, "Don't tell me you're
worrying--about three great healthy people like us. You have been,
though. Whatever put it into your mind to spend half a thought on that?"

"Why, it was a letter from Martin Whitney," he said. "Oh, the best meant
thing in the world. Nothing but encouragement in it from beginning to
end, only it was so infernally encouraging, it set me off. No, let me
talk. You're quite the easiest person in the world to tell things to.
I've been remiss, there's no getting away from that. I've never taken
money-making very seriously, it came so easily. I've spent my earnings
the way my friends have spent their incomes. Well, if I'd died the other
day, there wouldn't have been much left. There would have been my life
insurance for Paula, and enough to pay my debts, including my engagements
for Rush, but beyond that, oh, a pittance merely. Of course with ten
years' health, back at my practise, even with five, I could improve the
situation a lot."

She urged as emphatically as she dared--she wanted to avoid the
mistake of sounding encouraging--that the situation needed no
improvement. The income of fifty thousand dollars would take care of
Paula, and beyond that,--well, if there were ever two healthy young
animals in the world concerning whom cares and worries were
superfluous, they were herself and Rush.

He told her thoughtfully that this was where she was; wrong. "Rush, to
begin with, isn't a healthy young animal. T