"Well, Mrs. Lanier, I think I know about what you want—and I'm here to say that I'll help you to get it—if in return you will leave us alone." He stopped for a moment, and went on: "In the last few months, it has seemed to me, you've been doing your best to bring on a clash between me and your husband. Every week in the office is worse than the last. I don't blame you for that, from your point of view. You felt I was trying to make him eat and sleep in his office. I was—and I am. But my point to you is that it won't be for long, and I'm doing this really on your account—to get money enough to satisfy you." She looked up in a startled way, but he went on unheeding. "You and I must understand each other. Tell me how much you really need—and we'll get it, Joe and I. And then I'll give him back to you nights—and in the daytime you leave him to me."
He glanced at her with a weary dislike which gave her an impulse to say to him, "Isn't this rather insulting?" But she did not speak. For looking at him sharply, she caught in the man's heavy eyes a certain grim, deep wistfulness which drew her a little in spite of his speech. And she felt very curious, too.
"What do you think I really want?" she asked him, then. Her voice was low.
"Money," he said.
"Where did you get that idea?"
"From your sister," he replied. "She sent for me, too—long ago."
"What for?"
"Money. She told me that we were not making enough—that I was holding her husband back—from 'his career' she called it. She said that if I kept him out of a certain job that meant money quick, she would break up our partnership. She said she could do it, and she was right. My hold on Joe wasn't in it with hers."
"What was your hold on him? What do you mean?" asked Ethel. Again her voice was low. Nourse looked down at his big hands and answered very quietly:
"I'm afraid you wouldn't understand." She bit her lip.