“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.

One represented a woman from thirty-eight to forty years, corpulent, robust, covered with horrible cheap jewelry that she had evidently put on for the purpose of being photographed.  The other was a young girl of about twenty years, pretty, simply and elegantly dressed, whose distinguished and reserved physiognomy was a strong contrast to the first portrait.

While Saniel looked at these pictures Caffie studied him, trying to discover the effect they produced.

“Now that you have seen them,” he said, “let us talk of them a little.  If you knew me better, my dear sir, you would know that I am frankness itself, and in business my principle is to tell everything, the good and the bad, so that my clients are responsible for the decisions they make.  In reality, there is nothing bad about these two persons, because, if there were, I would not propose them to you.  But there are certain things that my delicacy compels me to point out to you, which I do frankly, feeling certain that a man like you is not the slave of narrow prejudices.”

An expression of pain passed over his face, and he clasped his jaw with both hands.

“You suffer?” Saniel asked.

“Yes, from my teeth, cruelly.  Pardon me that I show it; I know by myself that nothing is more annoying than the sight of the sufferings of others.”

“At least not to doctors.”