his portfolio took his leave.

"Close the door when you go out," Caffie said, who was already seated in
his arm-chair.

"Do not be afraid."

When the clerk was gone Caffie apologized for the interruption.

"Let us continue our conversation, my dear sir. I told you that there is
only one way to relieve you permanently from embarrassment, and that
way you will find is in a good marriage, that will place 'hic et nunc' a
reasonable sum at your disposal."

"But it would be folly for me to marry now, when I have no position to
offer a wife."

"And your future, of which you have just spoken with so much assurance,
have you no faith in that?"

"An absolute faith--as firm to-day as when I first began the battle of
life, only brighter. However, as others have not the same reasons that
I have to hope and believe what I hope and believe, it is quite
natural that they should feel doubts of my future. You felt it yourself
instantly in not finding it a good guarantee for the small loan of three
thousand francs."

"A loan and marriage are not the same thing. A loan relieves you
temporarily, and leaves you in a state to contract several others
successively, which, you must acknowledge, weakens the guarantee that
you offer. While a marriage instantly opens to you the road that your
ambition wishes to travel."

"I have never thought of marriage."

"If you should think of it?"

"There must be a woman first of all."

"If I should propose one, what would you say?"

"But--"

"You are surprised?"

"I confess that I am."

"My dear sir, I am the friend of my clients, and for many of them--I
dare to say it--a father. And having much affection for a young woman,
and for the daughter of one of my friends, while listening to you I
thought that one or the other might be the woman you need. Both have
fortunes, and both possess physical attractions that a handsome man
like yourself has a right to demand. And for the rest, I have their
photographs, and you may see for yourself what they are."

He opened a drawer in his desk, and took from it a package of
photographs. As he turned them over Saniel saw that they were all
portraits of women. Presently he selected two and handed them to Saniel.

One represented a woman from thirty-eight to forty years, corpulent,
robust, covered with horrible cheap jewelry that she had evidently put
on for the purpose of being photographed. The other was a young girl
of about twenty years, pretty,