I'm offering you something. I'm not exactly empty-handed as it is, but when Merrivan dies—well, I'm his only relative. You're broke, and you've been up to some damned folly. I don't know what it is, but I'll know sooner or later. You can't stay in Beverley Green much longer. Your father has drunk two mortgages on to this house and he'll drink the furniture before he's through. I dare say you think it will be fine and large to earn your living, but it isn't. Five employers in seven will want to cuddle you, I know. I'm willing to put that poor soak into a good inebriates' home. It will be kill or cure, and, anyway, it has got to come to that. I'm speaking plainly. I've tried the other way and it hasn't worked. You're woman enough to see that it is kindest to be cruel. I want you, Stella, I want you more than I've wanted anything. And I know!"

    This significantly. Her lips moved; but the question she put had no sound.

    "I know just how bad your affairs are, and I tell you that I am going to use my knowledge to get you. There isn't a low-down thing on earth that I won't do to get you. That's straight?"

    They had been on such good terms that the reticences which separate ordinary friends from one another had been thawed away. He was the only man in the world, with the exception of her father, who addressed her by her Christian name. She called him "Arthur" naturally. To Stella Nelson he was a type of young business man who played tennis, danced well, talked about himself with satisfaction and owned a mid-opulent car. He was the most engaging of that type she had met, and she had studied him sufficiently well to know exactly what he would do in any given set of circumstances.

    Her first sensation when he began to speak was one of dismay and chagrin. She was not hurt; it was a long time before she was hurt. But she was annoyed by the mistake she had made. She had felt that way when at a bridge party she had inadvertently or abstractedly led the wrong card, knowing that it was the wrong card, and had lost the rubber in consequence. She had an absurd desire to apologise to him for having misjudged his character, but, even had she not recognised its absurdity, she was incapable of speech. She was wrong, not he. He was right, natural, his own self, aggressive and 'hell-sure'. The Canadian professor had used that expression in her hearing and it had tickled her. Arthur Wilmot was hell-sure of himself, of his advantageous position, of her.

    Then she found her voice.

    "You'd better go, Arthur," she said gently.

    In age she was little more than a child.