It was a clerk from the bank.

“You will permit me,” Caffie said, on returning to his office.  “It will take but an instant.”

The clerk took a paper from his portfolio and handed it to Caffie.

Caffie drew a key from the pocket of his vest, with which he opened the iron safe placed behind his desk, and turning his back to Saniel and the clerk counted the bills which they heard rustle in his hands.  Presently he rose, and closing the door of the safe he placed under the lamp the package of bills that he had counted.  The clerk then counted them, and placing them in his portfolio took his leave.

“Close the door when you go out,” Caffie said, who was already seated in his arm-chair.

“Do not be afraid.”

When the clerk was gone Caffie apologized for the interruption.

“Let us continue our conversation, my dear sir.  I told you that there is only one way to relieve you permanently from embarrassment, and that way you will find is in a good marriage, that will place ‘hic et nunc’ a reasonable sum at your disposal.”

“But it would be folly for me to marry now, when I have no position to offer a wife.”

“And your future, of which you have just spoken with so much assurance, have you no faith in that?”

“An absolute faith—­as firm to-day as when I first began the battle of life, only brighter.  However, as others have not the same reasons that I have to hope and believe what I hope and believe, it is quite natural that they should feel doubts of my future.  You felt it yourself instantly in not finding it a good guarantee for the small loan of three thousand francs.”

“A loan and marriage are not the same thing.  A loan relieves you temporarily, and leaves you in a state to contract several others successively, which, you must acknowledge, weakens the guarantee that you offer.  While a marriage instantly opens to you the road that your ambition wishes to travel.”

“I have never thought of marriage.”

“If you should think of it?”

“There must be a woman first of all.”

“If I should propose one, what would you say?”

“But—­”

“You are surprised?”

“I confess that I am.”

“My dear sir, I am the friend of my clients, and for many of them—­I dare to say it—­a father.  And having much affection for a young woman, and for the daughter of one of my friends, while listening to you I thought that one or the other might be the woman you need.  Both have fortunes, and both possess physical attractions that a handsome man like yourself has a right to demand.  And for the rest, I have their photographs, and you may see for yourself what they are.”

He opened a drawer in his desk, and took from it a package of photographs.  As he turned them over Saniel saw that they were all portraits of women.  Presently he selected two and handed them to Saniel.