"What's Pa been up to now?" pertly demanded the voice of Pa's fair daughter.
Isidora had come in while the two were so deeply occupied in conversation and the dregs in their coffee cups, that they had not seen her lift the curtain.
Since the day of her first introduction to P. Gordon, she had not appeared at this early hour of the morning. Her father was generally at his post, and when he was there, Isidora was supposed to exist not for use, but for ornament. However, she knew that Alexander was now reposing after last night's eloquence, and she had taken advantage of his absence. This time she was not in wrapper and curling pins. She had dressed herself with great care for the day, having learned from the "hired girl" that Bill Willing's "swell friend" had come in with him.
"What's Pa been up to now, I say?" she asked again, before the startled and mortified Bill could answer.
"Oh, nothing," replied the artist, apologetically. "We was just talkin'."
"I was wondering if he would advance me anything, enough to get back to England with—on my letter of credit?" Loveland frankly explained.
Isidora's eyes dilated at Val's suggestion of going back to England. It had not occurred to her, facts being as stated in the newspapers, that he would wish to return to his own country; and as fortunately, after the first sensational paragraphs, his affairs had been crowded out of public interest by various startling events of far greater importance, she had thought that he would be thankful to "worry along" as he was.
"Get back to England!" she echoed, blankly.
"It seems the one thing to do now, if I weren't kept here by the lack of a few wretched sovereigns," said Loveland. "If your father would trust me——"
"Oh, he wouldn't!" Isidora hastened to put that idea out of P. Gordon's mind, once and for ever. "He never trusted anybody yet, and he wouldn't begin with you. Why, he says his success in life comes from never believin' anybody but himself. If a man tells him it's a nice day, he goes to the window and peeks out before takin' a walk without his umbrella. And he'd think 'twas like takin' a walk in his best clothes when it rained cats and dogs, to lend a furriner money."