"Should I understand if you told me about it?" she asked.
"Oh, very likely not," he returned, coolly; "but I don't in the least mind telling you, if it's any satisfaction to you. It isn't any great matter, only that I live so near the ragged edge that a dollar or two either way makes all the difference between poverty and independence." Edith breathed more freely. Her husband's self-possessed manner, and the fact that she knew him to be so given to exaggeration, made her feel that things were not so hopeless as his words had at first implied.
"I have three thousand shares of Princeton Platinum stock," Fenton went on, with the condescending air of one who elaborately explains details which he knows will not be understood. "I bought at two and seven-eighths, with money that should go to pay notes due on Saturday. The stock was worth two and an eighth last night and very likely by to-night won't be worth anything."
"Then why didn't you sell yesterday?" Edith asked.
Arthur smiled at the feminine turn of her words.
"Because, my shrewd financier, I don't want to sell at a loss, and Mr.
Irons assures me that there will be a rise before the final collapse."
He did not add, as he might have done, the substance of the talk between himself and Irons. That wily financier had said to him one day,—
"Fenton, you were almighty toploftical about those railroad shares, and I'll give you another chance. I've had four thousand shares of Princeton Platinum turned over to me on an assignment. It cost me two, and you may have it at that figure, though it's worth two and a half in the market to-day."
"You are too generous, by half," Fenton had answered.
"Well, the fact is," Irons had responded, "I hate infernally to be under obligations. Princeton Platinum is wild-cat fast enough, but it will touch four before they let the bottom drop out. That I happen to know. This will give you a chance to make a neat thing out of it, and it will square off the obligation our syndicate's under to you."