"Well, yes."
"And he would laugh at me."
"Laugh at you," he frowned. "No gentleman can laugh at a lady's distress."
"But he might not regard it as distress. It might seem ridiculous to him."
"Hump," he grunted. "Well, it's undignified, it is almost outrageous to be forced to do such a thing, but you must go to him. Your mother will go with you."
"No, James," his wife gently protested, looking at him in mild appeal. "I don't really think I can muster the courage for so awkward an undertaking. Please leave me out."
"Leave you out of so important an arrangement, an arrangement that involves the future of your daughter!"
"Then, why should not all three of us go?" she asked.
"I have trampled my own pride under my feet by going once," he replied. "Yes, and he treated me with cool impudence. And if I should go again something might happen. That man has humiliated me more than any man I ever met, and once is enough; I couldn't bear an insult in the presence of my wife and daughter. Eva, do you know what that man tried to do? He gained admission to my private office, and actually strove to bunco me out of a hundred dollars."
"He may have tried to borrow it, father, but I don't think he tried to get it dishonestly."