breakfast, with Beverly
Plank, and I need sleep."

"I want to talk to you," he repeated doggedly.

She regarded him for a moment in silence, then, with an assenting
gesture, turned away into her room; and he followed, heavily
apprehensive but resolved.

She had seated herself among a pile of cushions, one knee crossed over
the other, her slim white foot half concealed by the silken toe of her
slipper. And as he pulled a chair forward for himself, her pretty black
eyes, which slanted a little, took his measure and divined trouble.

"Leila," he said, "why can't we have--"

"A cigarette?" she interrupted, indicating her dainty case on the table.

He took one, savagely aware of defiance somewhere. She lighted her
own from a candle and settled back, studying the sequence of blue
smoke-rings jetting upward to the ceiling.

"About this man Plank," he began, louder than he had intended through
sheer self-mistrust; and his wife made a quick, disdainful sign of
caution, which subdued his voice instantly. "Why can't we take him
up--together, Leila?" he ended lamely, furious at his own uneasiness in
a matter which might concern him vitally.

"I see no necessity of your taking him up," observed his wife serenely.
"I can do what may be useful to him in town."

"So can I. There are clubs where he ought to be seen--"

"I can manage such matters much better."

"You can't manage everything," he insisted sullenly. "There are chances
of various sorts--"

"Investments?" asked Mrs. Mortimer, with bright malice.

"See here, Leila, you have your own way too much. I say little; I make
damned few observations; but I could, if I cared to. ... It becomes you
to be civil at least. I want to talk over this Plank matter with you; I
want you to listen, too."

A shade of faint disgust passed over her face. "I am listening," she
said.

"Well, then, I can see several ways in which the man can be of use to
me. ... I discovered him before you did, anyway. And what I want to do is
to have a frank, honourable--"

"A--what?"

"--An honourable understanding with you, I said," he repeated,
reddening.

"Oh!" She snapped her cigarette into the grate. "Oh! I see. And what
then?"

"What then?"

"Yes; what then?"

"Why, you and I can arrange to stand behind him this winter in town,
can't we?"

"And then?"

"Then--damn it!--the beggar can show his gratitude, can't he?"

"How?" she asked listlessly.

"By making good. How else?" he