“Has anything happened?” she asked, doing her best to give the question a casual intonation.

“A great deal has happened.”  He allowed that statement to sink in before continuing.  “I think”—­he paused long—­“I think I’m going to get the money.”

She held herself well in hand, though at the words the old familiar landmarks of her former world seemed to rise again, rosily, mistily, like the walls of Troy to the sound of Apollo’s lute.  She looked into the kettle again to see if the water was yet boiling, taking longer than necessary to peer into the quiet depth.

“I’m so glad.”  She spoke as if he had told her he had shaken hands with an old friend.  “I thought you would.”

“Ah, but you never thought of anything like this.”

“I knew it would be something pretty good.  With your name, there wasn’t the slightest doubt of it.”

Had he been a wise man he would have let it go at that.  He was not, however, a wise man.  The shallow, brimming reservoir of his nature was of the kind that spills over at a splash.

“The most extraordinary thing has happened,” he went on.  “A man came to my office to-day and offered to lend me—­no, not to lend—­practically to give me—­enough money to pull me through.”

She held a lump of sugar poised above his cup with the sugar-tongs.  Her astonishment was so great that she kept it there.  The walls of the city which just now had seemed to be rising magically faded away again, leaving the same unbounded vacancy into which she had been looking out all day.

“What do you mean by—­practically to give you?”

“The man said lend.  But my name is good for even more than you supposed, since he knows, and I know, that I can offer him no security.”

“How can he tell, then, that you’ll ever pay it back?”

“He can’t tell.  That’s just it.”

“And can you tell?” She let the lump of sugar fall with a circle of tiny eddies into the cup of tea.

“I can tell—­up to a point.”  His tone indicated some abatement of enthusiasm.

“Up to what point?”

“Up to the point that I’ll pay it back—­if I can.  That’s all he asks.  As a matter of fact, he doesn’t seem to care.”

She handed him his cup.  “Isn’t that a very queer way to lend money?”

“Of course it’s queer.  That’s why I’m telling you.  That’s what makes it so remarkable—­such a—­tribute—­to me, I dare say that sounds fatuous, but—­”

“It doesn’t sound fatuous so much as—­”

“So much as what?”

The distress gathering in her eyes prepared him for her next words before she uttered them.

“Papa, I shouldn’t think you’d take it.”

He stared at her dully.  Her perspicacity disconcerted him.  He had expected to bolster up the ruins of his honor by her delighted acquiescence.  He had not known till now how much he had been counting on the justification of her relief.  It was a proof, however, of the degree to which his own initiative had failed him that he cowered before her judgment, with little or no protest.