"Perfectly. Please explain the forgeries."
The poet, who had sunk down upon a chair, now arose and began to make elaborate gestures preliminary to a fluency of speech which had never yet deserted him in any crisis where a lady was involved.
"My dear child——" he began.
"What!" cut in Jacqueline crisply.
"My—my dear and—and honored, but very youthful and inexperienced young lady," he stammered, a trifle out of countenance under the fierce glimmer in her eyes, "do you, for one moment, suppose that such a writer as Mr. Waudle would imperil his social and literary reputation for the sake of a few wretched dollars!"
"Fifteen thousand," commented Jacqueline quietly.
"Exactly. Fifteen thousand contemptible dollars—inartistically designed," he added, betraying a tendency to wander from the main point; and was generously proceeding to instruct her in the art of coin design when she brought him back to the point with a shock.
"You, also, are involved in this questionable transaction," she said coldly. "Can you explain these forgeries?"
"F-forgeries!" he repeated, forcibly injecting indignation into the exclamation; but his eyes grew very round, as though frightened, and a spinal limpness appeared which threatened the stability of his knees.
But the poet's fluency had not yet deserted him; he opened both arms in a gesture suggesting absolute confidence in a suspicious and inartistic world.