Should he risk a message or wait until morning? He decided on the message. He took out one of his fraternity college cards and wrote beneath his name:

I have been told you can tell me whom to see about a house that the Women’s Club would like to purchase.

He looked at it after he had written it, and the words seemed to be dancing around his name, hand in hand. How tired he felt and hungry, too. He almost wished he had not come tonight.

The maid took the card, looked at him uncertainly, and finally asked him in and gave him a chair in the reception hall. He saw her vanishing up the stairs studying the card, and his heart sank. How blundering he had been to blurt out his business in that abrupt way. Now likely the woman would send him word she knew nothing about it. Perhaps after all she wasn’t the right Mrs. Steele. Perhaps George had been her son’s name or her brother’s. What a fool he had been not to approach her on the train, tell her frankly that he had overheard her. Now perhaps he would never get on the track of this chance again.

But then he heard the soft stir of silken skirts, and suddenly he saw the lady herself approaching. There was eagerness in her face and keen questioning.

“Are you from the Lockwoods’ house? Are you the agent?” she asked as she came toward him, his card in her hand.

Thurlow rose deferentially.

“No, but I heard that the club was looking at the Lockwood house, and knowing it was not in the market, I came to see if you would be interested in the house next door. I represent that.”

“Next door?” asked the lady eagerly. “Which side?”

She studied Thurlow’s face with kindling eyes as he explained about the house. He could see it interested her.

“And what is your price?” she asked.

The boy’s lips turned white as he opened them to answer; there was so much at stake.

“The price is low,” he said eagerly, “but it has to be cash. And it has to be within the next three days or I can’t sell it to you at all.”

The woman eyed him interestedly.

“Sit down,” she said. “Tell me about it. Wait! I’ll call my husband.”

He heard the man upstairs asserting that he hadn’t time to stop and listen to a fool thing about the club, but he heard the low, insistent plea of the woman, and then the two came down, the man growling, “All right. Just for a minute, but you’ll have to make it snappy!”

During the seconds while they were walking down the stairs, Thurlow did some rapid planning. He would have to be as brief as possible or the man would be gone, and the woman would perhaps not decide in his absence.

He arose with his story on his lips. He lifted honest eyes to the keen businessman, who searched him with cold eyes, but he spoke with the courage of desperation.

“My father died two months ago. Our house had a mortgage, which would have been all right, only the building association that held the mortgage failed, and it got into the hands of a couple of crooks. Then we lost every cent we had in the Franklin Bank crash, and now the crooks are demanding the full amount of the personal bond, which is double the mortgage. We can’t pay any of it, and we’ve got to sell the house. We have three days left before they take it away from us. If we can sell the house for cash, we can let it go at—” Thurlow named the lowest sum that would clear the bond and pay the expenses of the transfer. He felt this was the last chance, and he couldn’t hope to get enough for any left over for themselves. But it had to be done. He swallowed hard and went on.

“After that it goes into the hands of the crooks, and they’ll want plenty if they sell it at all, though I think they mean to build a large apartment house there and make a lot of money out of it.