She surveyed him without answering, her brows drawn, her mind concentrated on him and on what he could mean.
“Do you want me to teach somebody music?” she said, wondering if this could be the pleasant solution of the enigma.
“No. The—er—the business I’ve come to talk to you about ought to do away altogether with the necessity of your giving lessons.”
They looked at each other silently for a moment. Win was conscious that his hands were trembling, and that his mouth was dry. He rose from his chair and mechanically reached for his hat. When he had started on his difficult errand he had been certain that she knew her relationship to his father. Now the dreadful thought entered his mind that perhaps she did not. And even if she did, it was evident that she was not going to give him the least help.
“What is the business you’ve come to see me about?” she asked.
“It’s a question of money,” he answered.
“Money!” ejaculated Mariposa, in baffled amaze. “What money? Why?”
He glanced desperately into his hat and then back at her. She saw the hat trembling in his hand and suddenly realized that this man was trying to say something that was agitating him to the marrow of his being.
“Mr. Shackleton,” she said, rising to her feet, “tell me what you mean. I don’t understand. I’m completely at sea. How can there be any question of money between us when I’ve never seen you or met you before? Explain it all.”
He dropped the hat to his side and said slowly, looking her straight in the face: