he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his
father.

"You could if you _had_ to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your
word it couldn't come to that."

The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending
such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for
Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of
such a thing--such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in
her life or in his.

The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed
too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended
for a while.

Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal
conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and
spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her.

Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he
felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie.
Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her
until he recovered his self-respect--which would be duly recovered,
he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach
them and extinguish the parental loan.

For a week or two he did not even wish to see her, so ashamed and
sullied did he feel after the way his father had handled and bruised
the delicate situation, and the name of the young girl who so
innocently adorned it.

No, something had been spoiled for him, temporarily. He felt it.
Something of the sweetness, the innocence, the candour of this
blameless friendship had been marred. The bloom was rubbed off; the
piquant freshness and fragrance gone for the present.

It is true that an unexpected boom in his business kept him and his
father almost feverishly active and left them both fatigued at night.
This lasted for a week or two--long enough to excite all real estate
men with a hope for future prosperity not yet entirely dead. But at
the end of two or three weeks that hope began to die its usual,
lingering death.

Dulness set in; the talk was of Harlem, Westchester, and the Bronx: a
private bank failed, then three commercial houses went to the wall;
and a seat was sold for $25,000 on the Exchange. Business resumed its
normal and unexaggerated course. The days of boom were surely ended;
and vacant lots on Fifth Avenue threatened to remain vacant for a
while longer.

Clive began to drop in at his clubs again. One was a Whipper-Snapper
Club to which young Manhat