“I thank you for your sympathy,” he said.

“I shall prove to you that it is real, and that it may become useful.  You come to me because you want three thousand francs.  I hope I may find them for you, and I promise to try, though it will be difficult, very difficult.  They will make you secure for the present.  But will they assure your future? that is, will they permit you to continue the important works of which you have spoken to me, and on which your future depends?  No.  Your struggles will soon begin again.  And you must shake yourself clear from such cares in order to secure for yourself the liberty that is indispensable if you wish to advance rapidly.  And to obtain this freedom from cares and this liberty, I see only one way—­you must marry.”

CHAPTER IV

’Twixt the devil and the deep sea

Saniel, who was on his guard and expected some sort of roguery from this man, had not foreseen that these expressions of interest were leading up to a proposal of marriage, and an exclamation of surprise escaped him.  But it was lost in the sound of the door-bell, which rang at that moment.

Caffie rose.  “How disagreeable it is not to have a clerk!” he said.

He went to open the door with an eagerness that he had not shown to Saniel, which proved that he had no fear of admitting people when he was not alone.

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.”