“I am; but—­don’t be offended!—­it seems to me you’d put me in a tighter.”

“How’s that?”

[Illustration:  “I’VE DONE WRONG, BUT I’M WILLING TO PAY THE PENALTY”]

“It’s a little difficult to explain.”  He leaned forward, with one of his nervous, jerky movements, and fingered the glass containing the three chrysanthemums, but without taking his eyes from Davenant.  So far he was quite satisfied with himself.  “You see, it’s this way.  I’ve done wrong—­very wrong.  We needn’t go into that, because you know it as well as I. But I’m willing to pay the penalty.  That is, I’m ready to pay the penalty.  I’ve made up my mind to it.  I’ve had to—­of course.  But if I accepted your offer, you’d be paying it, not I.”

“Well, why shouldn’t I?  I’ve paid other people’s debts before now—­once or twice—­when I didn’t want to.  Why shouldn’t I pay yours, when I should like the job?”

Davenant attempted, by taking something like a jovial tone, to carry the thing off lightly.

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it; there’s only a reason why I shouldn’t let you.”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t let me.  It mayn’t be just what you’d like, but it’s surely better than—­than what you wouldn’t like at all.”

Taking in the significance of these words, Guion colored, not with the healthy young flush that came so readily to Davenant’s face, but in dabbled, hectic spots.  His hand trembled, too, so that some of the water from the vase he was holding spilled over on the desk.  It was probably this small accident, making him forget the importance of his role, that caused him to jump up nervously and begin pacing about the room.

Davenant noticed then what he had not yet had time for—­the change that had taken place in Guion in less than twenty hours.  It could not be defined as looking older or haggard or ill.  It could hardly be said to be a difference in complexion or feature or anything outward.  As far as Davenant was able to judge, it was probably due, not to the loss of self-respect, but to the loss of the pretense at self-respect; it was due to that desolation of the personality that comes when the soul has no more reason to keep up its defenses against the world outside it, when the Beautiful Gate is battered down and the Veil of the Temple rent, while the Holy of Holies lies open for any eye to rifle.  It was probably because this was so that Guion, on coming back to his seat, began at once to be more explanatory than there was any need for.

“I haven’t tried to thank you for your kind suggestion, but we’ll come to that when I see more clearly just what you want.”

“I’ve told you that.  I’m not asking for anything else.”

“So far you haven’t asked for anything at all; but I don’t imagine you’ll be content with that.  In any case,” he hurried on, as Davenant seemed about to speak, “I don’t want you to be under any misapprehension about the affair.  There’s nothing extenuating in it whatever—­that is, nothing but the intention to ‘put it back’ that goes with practically every instance of”—­he hesitated long—­“every instance of embezzlement,” he finished, bravely.  “It began this way—­”