"My! You are modest!" she said. "And yet you don't look it, somehow."
She turned her right-hand palm upwards on his knee, tacitly inviting
his. "You're a good one to talk of life being worth while, aren't you?"
she said.

He accepted the frank invitation, faintly smiling. "Well, I know the
good things are there," he said, "though I've missed them."

"You'll marry and be happy yet," she said, with confidence. "But I
shouldn't put it off too long if I were you."

He shook his head. His hand still half-consciously grasped hers. "Ask a
woman to marry the son of one of the most famous swindlers ever known? I
think not," he said. "Why, even you--" His eyes regarded her,
comprehended her. He stopped abruptly.

"What about me?" she said.

He hesitated, possessed by an odd embarrassment. The dark eyes were
lifted quite openly to his. It came to him that they were accustomed to
the stare of multitudes--they met his look so serenely, so impenetrably.

"I don't know how we got on to the subject of my affairs," he said,
after a moment. "It seems to me that yours are the most important just
now. Aren't you going to tell me anything about them?"

She gave a small, emphatic shake of the head. "I should have been dead
by this time if you hadn't interfered," she said. "I haven't got any
affairs."