Helen was silent, and for a little space the two walked forward without a word. At last the girl lifted her eyes to Smith's a little wistfully.
"I'm glad he can keep his shop," she said; "and yet in one way I'm rather sorry that the creditors agreed. I would have liked to have helped the old man, myself, and I think it would have been rather good fun to have financed a harness business."
"Yes; it would," Smith rejoined, with a laugh. "But I confess I'm a little relieved. I'm afraid that for me it would have meant attaching another mortgage to the old homestead, which already looks like a popular bill board, it is so plastered with prior liens."
The girl did not know exactly what answer to make to this, so she made none. Smith presently went on.
"But I'm sure he would like to know that you would have assisted him if it had been necessary. If I am ever anywhere near Robbinsville, I shall make a point to see him and tell him."
"Why, I had nothing to do with it!" said the girl. "It was entirely your plan—I merely said I'd go halves with you."
"Yes. But I would really have never done anything by myself," Smith replied frankly. "And for a very good reason. But in any event the old man would be much more interested in thinking it was you."
"If I am ever in Robbinsville, I shall see that he knows the real facts," said Miss Maitland, with a slight flush in her cheeks.
"Here is Twenty-third Street," the underwriter said abruptly. "Where are you bound for, if I may ask?"
"Nowhere in particular," the girl answered. She stopped. "Isn't that a wonderful sight, now, in the sunlight?" She indicated the white tower of the Metropolitan Life building, pointing far up into the clear blue of the eastern sky, across Madison Square.