"I will tell you all about it, John, dear; but first answer my question? There isn't any doubt, is there? The book can be published now?"
"Why—no; or rather—yes," he said slowly. "If the money is really ours, to do with as we please,—even to embark on so wild an adventure as a book of poems. I can't conceive how you came by it, though, dearest."
John held the ten-pound notes in his hand; he looked at them now, as if half surprised to find them still there.
Then Phyllis told him of her call at Mr. Rowlandson's shop; she remembered every word of the conversation; and came out especially strong on the rigid regularity of the transaction; the signed note, and the five per cent, payable half-yearly, on the appointed day. John's face was a study.
"Oh, Phyllis! Phyllis!" he said softly, when she had finished. "You would have sold your valentines—that you love so dearly! the old valentines that are entwined with your memories of your mother. You would have sold them! For me!"
Phyllis smiled happily at him and gave him both of her hands, across the little dinner table. When he could trust his voice, he said,—
"I am confident of my book. If I were not, of course, I couldn't let you do this, darling; dear as it was of you to think of it,—and to execute it so cleverly—so very cleverly. Old Rowlandson is a brick."
"He is a very shrewd man of business," said Phyllis, looking at John with misgivings "He always has a sum of ready money laid by, for perfectly businesslike investments."
"Of course," he reassured her.
He knew he could meet the interest on Phyllis's note. As to the principal—well, if worst came to worst he would be justified in breaking his promise to his father that he would never borrow on his expectations. Justified! John could almost see his father's smile of approval.