She fixed her eyes upon the Count's face as though she would have him obey
her.

"I will help you, and make everything right," she said. "But you must tell
me what the trouble is."

"But how can you help me, child?" he asked, beginning to grow calmer under
her clear gaze. "It is such a very complicated case," he continued,
falling back gradually into his own natural manner. "You see, my friends
have probably arrived by this train, and yet I cannot go home until I have
set this other matter right with Fischelowitz. It is true, I have left a
word written for them on my table, and perhaps they are there now, waiting
for me, and if I went home I could have the money at once. But then--it
may be too late before I get here again--"

"What money?" asked Vjera, anxious to get at the truth without delay.

"Oh, it is an absurd thing," he answered, growing nervous again. "Quite
absurd--and yet, it is fifty marks--and until they come, I do not see what
to do. Fifty marks--to-day it seems so much, and to-morrow it will seem so
little!" He made a poor attempt to smile, but his voice trembled.

"But these fifty marks--what do you need them for to-night?" Vjera asked,
not understanding at all. "Will not to-morrow do as well?"

"No, no!" he cried in renewed anxiety. "It must be to-night, now, this
very hour. If I do not pay the money, I am ruined, Vjera, disgraced for
ever. It is a debt of honour--you do not understand what that means,
child, nor how terrible it is for a man not to pay before the day is