It was the lead Junia needed.
"He's perfect, Jennie, in his way; and, oh, how I wish you were as free as forty-eight hours ago! You could be, of course, if—But I mustn't advise you, must I? I don't know how to. I'm just as lost as you are. Only, if you could find a way to cast the burden of the whole thing on Bob—"
"Do you mean to make him get the divorce?"
"In that case, we should want to feel that you had something to fall back upon. And so my husband thought that perhaps twenty-five thousand dollars—"
Jennie gave a great gasp. Her head began to swim. Not villas and limousines rose before her, but cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces.
"Poor daddy," she thought, "wouldn't have to hunt for a job any more, and momma'd have nothing to do for the rest of her life but sit in a chair and rock."
Yet that was only part of the vision. The rest did not go so easily into words. She had only to hurry to the studio, fling herself into the arms she was longing to feel clasped round her—and become fabulously rich.
That would be if Bob took the opening she offered him. If he didn't—
"But suppose Bob won't?" she asked, in terror lest he should not.
"I've thought of that, too," came the prompt answer. "He will, of course. But suppose he didn't. Well, we're not hagglers, my dear. We're only simple people trying to do right, just as you're trying to do right yourself. If Bob is only in a position in which he can undo his wrong, whether he undoes it or not, you shall have your twenty-five thousand just the same."