the Abbotts
made money last year. If the banks have lost faith in your business
ability, I--well, I should consider you a bad risk, Horace. I can't
afford to gamble."

"You never do. You only play cinches," Gower grunted. "However, your
money will be safe enough. I didn't say the banks refuse me credit. I
have excellent reasons for borrowing of you."

"I really do not see how I can possibly let you have such a sum," she
said. "You already have twenty thousand dollars of my money tied up in
your business, you know."

"You have an income of twelve thousand a year from the Maple Point
place," Gower recited in that unchanging, even tone. "You have over
twenty thousand cash on deposit. And you have eighty thousand dollars in
Victory Bonds. You mean you don't want to, Bessie."

"You may accept that as my meaning," she returned.

"There are times in every man's career," Gower remarked dispassionately,
"when the lack of a little money might break him."

"That is all the more reason why I should safeguard my funds," Mrs.
Gower replied. "You are not as young as you were, Horace. If you should
fail now, you would likely never get on your feet again. But we could
manage, I dare say, on what I have. That is why I do not care to risk
any of it."

"You refuse then, absolutely, to let me have this money?" he asked.

"I do," Mrs. Gower replied, with an air of pained but conscious
rectitude. "I should consider myself most unwise to do so."

"All right," Gower returned indifferently. "You force me to a showdown.
I have poured money into your hands for years for you to squander in
keeping up your position--as you call it. I'm about through doing that.
I'm sick of aping millionaires. All I need is a comfortable place where
I can smoke a pipe in peace. This house is mine. I shall sell it and
repay you your twenty thousand. You--"

"Horace! Sell this house. Our home! _Horace._"

"Our home?" Gower continued inflexibly. "The place where we eat and
sleep and entertain, you mean. We never had a home, Bessie. You will
have your ancestral hall at Maple Point. You will be quite able to
afford a Vancouver house if you choose. But this is mine, and it's going
into the discard. I shall owe you nothing. I shall still have the
cottage at Cradle Bay, if I go smash, and that is quite good enough for
me. Do I make myself clear?"

Mrs. Gower was sniffing. She had taken refuge with the pince-nez and the
polishing cloth. But her fingers were tr