She lifted her eyes to his, and dropped them, flushing. "I—excuse me; but I thought——"
"You thought I couldn't conveniently pay it?"
"O please excuse me! I didn't mean to be—to do anything you wouldn't like. But I did hear that you were—temporarily embarrassed. And I want you to feel sure, Mr. Dykeman, that to your real friends it makes no difference in the least. And if—for a while that is—it should be a little more convenient to—to defer payment, please feel perfectly at liberty to wait!"
She stood there blushing like a girl, her sweet eyes wet with shining tears that did not fall, full of tender sympathy for his misfortune.
"Have you heard that I've lost all my money?" he asked.
She nodded softly.
"And that I can't ever get it back—shall have to do clerk's work at a clerk's salary—as long as I live?"
Again she nodded.
He took a step or two back and forth in the quiet parlor, and returned to her.