"But, you see, I'm not leaping into a river. On the contrary, I'm getting out of one. It seems to me that you'd be only forcing me back and making my last state worse than the first."
It took him a minute to grasp the force of this. "That would depend, of course, on the point of view. As a matter of fact, it's something with which I've nothing to do. It concerns you, and it concerns Mr. Guion, but it doesn't concern me. For me the whole thing is very simple. I've offered to lend Mr. Guion a sum of money. It's for him to take or to leave. If he refuses it, I sha'n't be offended; and if he doesn't refuse it—"
"You'd let him have it, just the same?"
"Of course. Why not?"
"In spite of all I've said as to what I should feel?"
"But I'm not supposed to know anything about that, you know. I repeat that it isn't my affair. If Mr. Guion should accept my loan against your wishes—well, that's something you'd have to fix up with him."
She was some minutes silent, her eyes ranging over the river and the marshes, like his own.
"If you urged it on him," she said at last, "I think he'd take it."
"Then so much the better, from my point of view."
"Precisely; but then your point of view is a mystery. Not that it makes any difference," she hastened to add. "If my father accepts your loan, it will be for me to pay it back, in one way or another—if I ever can."