“But, you see,” she said gently, “all I have in the world is twenty dollars!”
There was a painful pause. Mr Mariner shot a swift glance at her in the hope of discovering that she had spoken humorously, but was compelled to decide that she had not. His face under normal conditions always achieved the maximum gloom possible for any face, so he gave no outward sign of the shock which had shattered his mental poise; but he expressed his emotion by walking nearly a mile without saying a word. He was stunned. He had supported himself up till now by the thought that, frightful as the expense of entertaining Jill as a guest might be, the outlay was a good sporting speculation if she intended buying house-property in the neighbourhood. The realization that he was down to the extent of a week’s breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, with nothing to show for it, appalled him. There had been a black morning some years before when Mr. Mariner had given a waiter a ten-dollar bill in mistake for a one. As he had felt then, on discovering his error when it was too late to retrieve it, so did he feel now.
“Twenty dollars!” he exclaimed, at the end of the mile.
“Twenty dollars,” said Jill,
“But your father was a rich man.” Mr. Mariner’s voice was high and plaintive. “He made a fortune over here before he went to England.”
“It’s all gone. I got nipped,” said Jill, who was finding a certain amount of humor in the situation, “in Amalgamated Dyes.”
“Amalgamated Dyes?”
“They’re something,” explained Jill, “that people get nipped in.”
Mr Mariner digested this.
“You speculated?” he gasped.