"No, not much," he replied.
"And—and he will not pull up; will not retrench? You will prevent that?" and she looked at him anxiously.
He did not reply, but his silence was significant enough.
"And he thinks you his best friend, his Fides Achates. Poor Blair!" and she laughed. "All his money gone, and his estates; Ketton is the last! Yes, he cannot keep the pace much longer. He will be—what do you men call it?—'stone broke,' and then—and then!" She drew a long breath, and her lips closed and opened. "And then he will come to me! He must come!" she exclaimed, her hand trembling. "He will come back to me, and——" She stopped suddenly, arrested by a look in his cold secretive eyes. "Is there anything else? Have you told me all?"
He was silent a moment, and she accosted him with an exclamation of impatient impetuosity.
"What else is there? Why do you sit there silent, if there is anything else to tell? Do you remember our bargain?"
"Yes, I remember it," he said, after a moment's pause, during which he looked, not at her, but just over her head, in the manner which Captain Floyd found so objectionable. "It is not so long ago that I should forget it. It was made in this room. I had the presumption to offer you——"
"Never mind that!" she broke in, but as if she had not spoken he went on in his cold, impassive manner.
"I had the presumption to offer you my hand, to beg yours! I was fool enough to imagine that your smiles and your sweet words were intended to signify that such an offer would not meet with a refusal. It was a mistake! I had forgotten that I was poor, and that you were rich. You recalled me to my senses by a laugh, which I hear still——"