"I just dropped in for a talk."
He said this with a meaning smile and lighted a cigarette. He was very casual. She watched him helplessly.
"Oh, why beat around the bush. I'm sick of it. I can't stand it. How much do you want? I've given you three thousand. Surely that's...."
"I don't want any, thank you," he answered with mysterious sarcasm. "Not a nickle."
"Then what do you want?" Her voice was rising despite her fear of being heard. "This is the fourth time you've ... you've hounded me."
"Oh, I hound you?" Again the mysterious sarcasm.
"If you'd only tell me what you want."
He smiled with the air of a man phenomenally at ease and returned to his chair.
"Nothing. Not a thing. I just dropped in for a chat, that's all."
His eyes regarded her triumphantly. Fanny returned their gaze. He was crazy. There was something crazy about him. He had called her on the telephone the day after seeing her in the hotel with Schroder. She had gone downtown to meet him. The whole business seemed like an impossible dream in retrospect. He had whined and begged for money. He was down and out, living from hand to mouth, his friends gone, his clothes in rags. He had known her father. She could save him. And he had never once referred to the incident in the hotel lobby. Neither had she. The conversation had been purely a needy friend and a philanthropically inclined woman. She had asked him how much he needed and he answered $1,500 would start him. A week later he came to her completely rehabilitated—an elderly looking fop swinging a cane and bristling with enthusiasms.