The practical woman reflected for an instant.
"I was thinking," she confessed then, "that it might
be cheaper to leave your things there, and buy what
little you want--I don't imagine, from what I've seen,
that your wardrobe is so very valuable--but no, I suppose
the bill ought to be paid. Perhaps it can be managed;
how much will it be?"

Thorpe musingly rose to his feet, and strolled over
to her chair. With his thick hands on his sister's
shoulders he stooped and kissed her on the forehead.

"You believe in me now, anyway, eh, Lou?" he said,
as he straightened himself behind her.

The unaccustomed caress--so different in character from
the perfunctory salute with which he had greeted her
on his arrival from foreign parts, six months before--
brought a flush of pleased surprise to her plain face.
Then a kind of bewilderment crept into the abstracted
gaze she was bending upon the fireless grate.
Something extraordinary, unaccountable, was in the manner
of her brother. She recalled that, in truth, he was
more than half a stranger to her. How could she tell
what wild, uncanny second nature had not grown up in him
under those outlandish tropical skies? He had just told
her that his ruin was absolute--overwhelming--yet there
had been a covert smile in the recesses of his glance.
Even now, she half felt, half heard, a chuckle from him,