"It isn't some girl, is it? You never take them seriously. All the same, is it?"
Desboro smiled: "Do you think it's likely, dear friend?"
"No, I don't. But whatever you're worrying about isn't improving your personal beauty. Since you hit this hamlet you've been on one continuous tootlebat. Why don't you go back to Westchester and hoe potatoes?"
"One doesn't hoe them in January, you know," said Desboro, always deprecatingly polite. "Please cease to trouble yourself about me. I'm quite all right, thanks."
"You've resigned from a lot of clubs and things, I hear."
"Admirably reported, dear friend, and perfectly true."
"Why?"
"Motives of economy; nothing more serious, John."
"You're not in any financial trouble, are you?"
"I—ah—possibly have been a trifle indiscreet in my expenditures—a little unfortunate in my investments, perhaps. You are very kind to ask me. It may afford you some gratification to learn that eventually I anticipate an agreeable return to affluence."