"In short," said Florence in a troubled voice, "it would probably be more profitable to let the whole crop rot as it stands."
"I'm afraid that's the case," Hunter agreed.
Florence sat silent for almost a minute watching him covertly. It once more struck her that he looked very jaded, and she was touched by the weariness in his face. Then, though the occasion seemed most inopportune, she was carried away by a sudden impulse which compelled her to mention Nevis's loan.
"Elcot," she blurted out, "I have made things worse for you all along—and now there's another trouble I have brought upon you."
For a minute or two she poured out disjointed sentences, and though the man listened gravely, almost unmoved in face, she found the making of that confession about the most difficult thing she had ever done.
"How much did you borrow?" he inquired.
She told him; and raising himself a little from his leaning posture he looked down upon her with an embarrassing quietness.
"I was half afraid there might be something of that kind in the background," he said at length. "There's one point I must raise. Presumably, you wouldn't allow a man who was to all intents and purposes a stranger to lend you money?"
He spoke as if the matter were open to doubt, and Florence found the situation rapidly becoming intolerable, but it was to her credit that she recognized that half-measures would be useless then.
"No," she acknowledged.