“How do I know it is?  You’ve misled me about it from the first.”

Moffatt’s face grew dark red to the forehead:  for the first time in their acquaintance Ralph saw him on the verge of anger.  “Well, if you get stuck so do I. I’m in it a good deal deeper than you.  That’s about the best guarantee I can give; unless you won’t take my word for that either.”  To control himself Moffatt spoke with extreme deliberation, separating his syllables like a machine cutting something into even lengths.

Ralph listened through a cloud of confusion; but he saw the madness of offending Moffatt, and tried to take a more conciliatory tone.  “Of course I take your word for it.  But I can’t—­I simply can’t afford to lose...”

“You ain’t going to lose:  I don’t believe you’ll even have to put up any margin.  It’s there safe enough, I tell you...”

“Yes, yes; I understand.  I’m sure you wouldn’t have advised me—­” Ralph’s tongue seemed swollen, and he had difficulty in bringing out the words.  “Only, you see—­I can’t wait; it’s not possible; and I want to know if there isn’t a way—­”

Moffatt looked at him with a sort of resigned compassion, as a doctor looks at a despairing mother who will not understand what he has tried to imply without uttering the word she dreads.  Ralph understood the look, but hurried on.

“You’ll think I’m mad, or an ass, to talk like this; but the fact is, I must have the money.”  He waited and drew a hard breath.  “I must have it:  that’s all.  Perhaps I’d better tell you—­”

Moffatt, who had risen, as if assuming that the interview was over, sat down again and turned an attentive look on him.  “Go ahead,” he said, more humanly than he had hitherto spoken.

“My boy...you spoke of him the other day...  I’m awfully fond of him—­” Ralph broke off, deterred by the impossibility of confiding his feeling for Paul to this coarse-grained man with whom he hadn’t a sentiment in common.

Moffatt was still looking at him.  “I should say you would be!  He’s as smart a little chap as I ever saw; and I guess he’s the kind that gets better every day.”

Ralph had collected himself, and went on with sudden resolution:  “Well, you see—­when my wife and I separated, I never dreamed she’d want the boy:  the question never came up.  If it had, of course—­but she’d left him with me when she went away two years before, and at the time of the divorce I was a fool...I didn’t take the proper steps...”

“You mean she’s got sole custody?”

Ralph made a sign of assent, and Moffatt pondered.  “That’s bad—­bad.”

“And now I understand she’s going to marry again—­and of course I can’t give up my son.”

“She wants you to, eh?”

Ralph again assented.

Moffatt swung his chair about and leaned back in it, stretching out his plump legs and contemplating the tips of his varnished boots.  He hummed a low tune behind inscrutable lips.