makes it good. I'm afraid you don't know very much about high finance,
mother dear."

"Please go away, George," complained Anne. "Mother and I have a great deal
to talk about, and you are a dreadful nuisance when you discover a reason
for coming home so long before dinner-time. Can't you pawn something?"

"Don't be ridiculous," said George.

"Why did you borrow money from Percy Wintermill?" demanded Mrs. Tresslyn.

"There you go, mother, using that word 'borrow' again. I wish you
wouldn't. It's a vulgar word. You might as well say, 'Why did you _swipe_
money from Percy Wintermill?' He lent it to me because he realised how
darned hard-up we are and felt sorry for me, I suppose."

"For heaven's sake, George, don't tell me that you—"

"Don't look so horrified, mother," he interrupted. "I didn't tell him we
were hard-up. I merely said, from time to time, 'Let me take fifty,
Percy.' I can't help it if he _suspects_, can I? And say, Anne, he was so
terribly in love with you that he would have let me take a thousand any
time I wanted it, if I'd had occasion to ask him for it. You ought to be
thankful that I didn't."

"Don't drag me into it," said Anne sharply.

"I admit I was fooled all along," said he, with a rueful sigh. "I had an
idea that you'd be tickled to death to marry into the Wintermill family.
Position, money, family jewels, and all that sort of thing. Everything