“Just a moment!” Sherry said, catching her unquiet hands, and holding them in a hard grasp. “How did you contrive to come by the money to redeem your vowels? I’ll swear you’d little enough left of this quarter’s allowance! Kitten, you haven’t sold the emeralds?”
“Oh, no, Sherry! Of course I have not done such a wicked thing! Why, they are not mine to sell! How could you think I would dream of doing so?”
“Then how the devil did you raise the wind?”
“I borrowed the money!” she replied triumphantly.
“ Borrowed it? Good God, I had rather you had sold the emeralds! Who — Kitten, don’t tell me you came down on poor old Gil to lend you money!”
“No, no! I knew that would not do! I went to those people you told me about, and they were very obliging, and — ”
“What people?” he interrupted, turning a little pale.
“I do not recall their names, but you will know, Sherry! you called them cent-per-cent, and they live — ”
“Howard and Gibbs!” he ejaculated, in a stunned tone.
“Yes, those are their names,” she nodded. “And as soon as I told them I was your wife they — at least, it was just one man — he was most civil, and he said he was perfectly willing to lend me the money, and I need not fear that he would press me for an early settlement.”