"I want to talk to you," he ventured hesitatingly.
"Oh, I love to hear you talk," Madelene babbled with joy.
Frederick flushed. He'd have to tell her of his marriage with Tessibel before she really admitted anything that would afterwards make her sorry.
"What I've got to tell you is very serious," he said at length. "You'll listen to me, Madelene?"
Five small fingers touched his lips.
"Nothing is serious now," came the interruption, "not now that I know you love me. It's all I want in the world to make me supremely happy," and she sighed.
Frederick shuddered. Why, he hadn't told her he loved her! He was as far from loving her at that moment as the very stranger on the street.
"But it's something you must know," he thrust in desperately.
"I know what it is," averred the girl smiling. "I know all about it.... It's just money, that horrid old money your mother borrowed of brother and me.... But what does money matter? I've lots of it, bunches of it, and more than enough for us all, and so has Ebenezer."
Frederick shook himself impatiently. She must listen while he explained the impossibility of their ever being anything to each other.