hat leaves us so much in
the dark."

"Isn't it conceivable--" he began, with a slightly puzzled air.

"Not that it matters," she interrupted, hurriedly. "Of course, if we had
anything with which to compensate you--anything adequate, that is--I
don't say that we shouldn't consider seriously the suggestion you were
good enough to make. But we haven't. As I understand it, we haven't
anything at all. That settles the question definitely. I hope you see."

"Isn't it conceivable," he persisted, "that a man might like to do a
thing, once in a way, without--"

"Without asking for an equivalent in return? Possibly. But in this case
it would only make it harder for me."

"How so?"

"By putting me under an overwhelming obligation to a total stranger--an
obligation that I couldn't bear, while still less could I do away with
it."

"I don't see," he reasoned, "that you'd be under a greater obligation to
me in that case than you are to others already."

"At present," she corrected, "we're not under an obligation to any one.
My father and I are contending with circumstances; we're not asking
favors of individuals. I know we owe money--a great deal of money--to a
good many people--"

"Who are total strangers, just like me."

"Not total strangers just like you--but total strangers whom I don't
know, and don't know anything about, and who become impersonal from
their very numbers."

"But you know Mrs. Rodman and Mrs. Clay. They're not impersonal."

All he saw for the instant was that she arrested her needle half-way
through the stitch. She sat perfectly still, her head bent, her fingers
rigid, as she might have sat in trying to catch some sudden, distant
sound. It was only in thinking it over afterward that he realized what
she must have lived through in the seconds before she spoke.

"Does my father owe money to _them_?"

The hint of dismay was so faint that it might have eluded any ear but
one rendered sharp by suspicion. Davenant felt the blood rushing to his
temples and a singing in his head. "My God, she didn't know!" he cried,
inwardly. The urgency of retrieving his mistake kept him calm and cool,
prompting him to reply with assumed indifference.

"I really can't say anything about it. I suppose they would be among the
creditors--as a matter of course."

For the first time she let her clear, grave eyes rest fully on him. They
were quiet eyes, with exquisitely finished lids and lashes. In his
imagination their de