ur call--as you know perfectly well. Is that all that is
worrying you?"

"No--not all. I--Neergard has lent me money--done things--placed me
under obligations. . . . I liked him, you know; I trusted him. . . .
People he desired to know I made him known to. He was a--a trifle
peremptory at times--as though my obligations to him left me no choice
but to take him to such people as he desired to meet. . . . We--we had
trouble--recently."

"What sort?"

"Personal. I felt--began to feel--the pressure on me. There was, at
moments, something almost of menace in his requests and suggestions--an
importunity I did not exactly understand. . . . And then he said
something to me--"

"Go on; what?"

"He'd been hinting at it before; and even when I found him jolliest and
most amusing and companionable I never thought of him as a--a social
possibility--I mean among those who really count--like my own people--"

"Oh! he asked you to introduce him into your own family circle?"

"Yes--I didn't understand it at first--until somehow I began to feel the
pressure of it--the vague but constant importunity. . . . He was a good
fellow--at least I thought so; I hated to hurt him--to assume any
attitude that might wound him. But, good heavens!--he couldn't seem to
understand that nobody in our family would receive him--although he had
a certain footing with the Fanes and Harmons and a few others--like the
Siowitha people--or at least the men of those families. Don't you see,
Philip?"

"Yes, my boy, I see. Go on! When did he ask to be presented to--your
sister?"

"W-who told you that?" asked the boy with an angry flush.

"You did--almost. You were going to, anyway. So that was it, was it?
That was when you realised a few things--understood one or two things;
was it not? . . . And how did you reply? Arrogantly, I suppose."

"Yes."

"With--a--some little show of--a--contempt?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Exactly. And Neergard--was put out--slightly?"

"Yes," said the boy, losing some of his colour. "I--a moment afterward I
was sorry I had spoken so plainly; but I need not have been. . . . He
was very ugly about it."

"Threats of calling loans?" asked Selwyn, smiling.

"Hints; not exactly threats. I was in a bad way, too--" The boy winced
and swallowed hard; then, with sudden white desperation stamped on his
drawn face: "Oh, Philip--it--it is disgraceful enough--but how am I
going to tell you the rest?--how can I speak of this matter