"Look here, Kit," he said, "you shall have some money if you must, though just now I want literally every penny I can lay hands on for this mine affair. I am playing for big stakes. If the thing comes off as I expect—and, what is much more satisfactory, as Alington expects—we shall be rich, and when I say rich it means a lot. But I think we had better have a talk. Oh, I will telegraph to Alington about your affair at once."
Kit felt wretchedly nervous and upset that morning, and while Jack wrote the telegram, she threw herself into a chair that stood before the fire and lit a cigarette, hoping to soothe her jangled nerves. Snow had already begun to fall, the air was biting; she shivered. But after a few whiffs she threw the cigarette away. It tasted evilly in her mouth, and she felt an undefined dread of what was coming, and not in the least inclined for a talk. Luckily, Jack was going up to town in half an hour; the talk could not last long.
He waited till the servant had taken the telegram, and then came and stood in front of the fire.
"How did you get that three thousand pounds?" he asked abruptly.
"I won it. I have told you so," said Kit.
"Where? When? It is a large sum. You know, Kit, I don't often pry into your affairs. Don't be angry with me."
"My dear Jack, I don't keep a book with the names and addresses of all the people from whom I have won sixpence. Neither of us, if it comes to that, is famed for well-kept account-books. Where? At a hundred places. When? This last summer and autumn," and her voice died a little on the words.
Jack turned and flicked the ash off his cigarette. He knew that Kit could not have won that amount, and he hated to think that she was lying to him. True, he was asking the sort of question they did not ask each other, but he could not help it—the air was ominous. She must have borrowed it or been given it, and such a suspicion cut him to the quick, for though he, like her, did not give two thoughts to running up huge bills at tradesmen's risk, yet it was quite a different thing to borrow from one's own class (for he knew rightly that Kit would never be so foolish as to go to a money-lender), or to be given money by one's friends. And her manner was so strange. He could not avoid the thought that there was something behind.
"Did Alice Haslemere lend you some?" he asked suddenly.
Kit, taken off her guard, saw a gleam of hope.