"Extremes?"

Diane spoke not so much from the desire to speak as from the necessity
of forcing her reeling intelligence back to the world of fact.

"I'm afraid there's no other word for it."

"Do you mean that there are debts?"

"A great many debts."

"Can't they be paid?"

"Most of them can be paid--perhaps all; but when that is done I'm afraid
there will be very little left."

"But surely we haven't lived so extravagantly as that. I know I've spent
a great deal of money--"

"It hasn't been altogether the style of living. When my poor boy saw
that he was going beyond his means he tried to recoup himself by
speculation. Do you know what that is?"

"I know it's something by which people lose money."

"He had no experience of anything of the kind, and his men of business
tell me he went into it wildly. He had that optimistic temperament which
always believes that the next thing will be a success, even though the
present one is a failure. Then, too, he fell into the hands of
unscrupulous men, who made him think that great fortunes were to be made