I'm here to
say that I'll help you to get it--if in return you will leave us alone."
He stopped for a moment, and went on: "In the last few months, it has
seemed to me, you've been doing your best to bring on a clash between me
and your husband. Every week in the office is worse than the last. I
don't blame you for that, from your point of view. You felt I was
trying to make him eat and sleep in his office. I was--and I am. But
my point to you is that it won't be for long, and I'm doing this really
on your account--to get money enough to satisfy you." She looked up in a
startled way, but he went on unheeding. "You and I must understand each
other. Tell me how much you really need--and we'll get it, Joe and I.
And then I'll give him back to you nights--and in the daytime you leave
him to me."

He glanced at her with a weary dislike which gave her an impulse to say
to him, "Isn't this rather insulting?" But she did not speak. For
looking at him sharply, she caught in the man's heavy eyes a certain
grim, deep wistfulness which drew her a little in spite of his speech.
And she felt very curious, too.

"What do you think I really want?" she asked him, then. Her voice was
low.

"Money," he said.

"Where did you get that idea?"

"From your sister," he replied. "She sent for me, too--long ago."

"What for?"

"Money. She told me that we were not making enough--that I was holding
her husband back--from 'his career' she called it. She said that if I
kept him out of a certain job that meant money quick, she would break up
our partnership. She said she could do it, and she was right. My hold
on Joe wasn't in it with hers."

"What was your hold on him? What do you mean?" asked Ethel. Again her
voice was low. Nourse looked down at his big hands and answered very
quietly:

"I'm afraid you wouldn't understand." She bit her lip.

"But until I do learn what you want of Joe," she retorted sharply, "I'm
afraid that I can't tell you how much money I shall need." He glanced up
at her, puzzled. "Suppose you try me," she went on. And as the man
still frowned at her, "I learned the other day," she said, "that you
knew Joe long before he was married. I want you to tell me about that."

Little by little she drew him out. And as in a reluctant way, in
sentences abrupt and bald, he answered all her questions, again and
again did Ethel feel a little wave of excitement. For Nourse was
speaking of Joe's youth--of college and later of Par