e was urging me to--to do what she wished.
And after she had used several arguments, she said something I--I've been
thinking it over, and it seemed I ought in fairness to tell you."

I waited.

"She said: 'In a few days more he'--that meant you--'he will be ruined. He
imagines the worst is over for him, when in fact they've only begun.'"

"They!" I repeated. "Who are 'they'? The Langdons?"

"I think so," she replied with an effort. "She did not say--I've told you
her exact words--as far as I can."

"Well," said I, "and why didn't you go?"

She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look into my
eyes, she replied: "I shall not discuss that. You probably misunderstand,
but that is your own affair."

"You believed what she said about me, of course," said I.

"I neither believed nor disbelieved," she answered indifferently, as she
rose to go. "It does not interest me."

"Come here," said I.

I waited until she reluctantly joined me at the window. I pointed to the
steeple of the church across the way. "You could as easily throw down that
steeple by pushing against it with your bare hands," I said to her, "as
'they,' whoever they are, could put me down. They might take away my money.
But if they did, they would only be giving me a lesson that would teach me
how more easily to get it back. I am not a bundle of stock certificates or
a bag of money. I am--here," and I tapped my forehead.

She forced a faint, scornful smile. She did not wish me to see her belief
of what I said.

"You may think that is vanity," I went on. "But you will learn, sooner or
later, the difference between boasting and simple statement of fact. You
will learn that I do not boast. What I said is no more a boast than for a
man with legs to say, 'I can walk.' Because you have known only legless
men, you exaggerate the difficulty of walking. It's as easy for me to make
money as it is for some people to spend it."

It is hardly necessary for me to say I was not insinuating anything against
her people. But she was just then supersensitive on the subject, though
I did not suspect it. She flushed hotly. "You will not have any cause to
sneer at my people on that account hereafter," she said. "I settled
_that_ to-day."

"I was not sneering at them," I protested. "I wasn't even thinking of them.
And--you must know that it's a favor to me for anybody to ask me to do
anything that will please you--Anita!"

She made a gesture of i