with a quick look to Miss Raglan, and smiled as at some incongruous
thing. He was wondering what would be the effect of his next words.

"When I was about twenty-two, and had ten thousand dollars, I fell in
love. She was a bright-faced, smart girl. Her mother kept a
boarding-house in New York; not an up-town boarding-house. She waited on
table. I suppose a man can be clever in making money, and knowing how to
handle men, and not know much about women. I thought she was worth a good
deal more to me than the ten thousand dollars. She didn't know I had that
money. A drummer--that's a commercial traveller--came along, who had a
salary of, maybe, a thousand dollars a year. She jilted me. She made a
mistake. That year I made twenty-five thousand dollars. I saw her a
couple of years ago. She was keeping a boarding-house too, and her
daughter was waiting on table. I'm sorry for that girl: it isn't any fun
being poor. I didn't take much interest in women after that. I put my
surplus affections into stocks and shares, and bulling and bearing. . .
Well, that is the way the thing has gone till now."

"What became of your father and your brother?" she asked in a neutral
tone.

"I don't know anything about my father. He disappeared after I left, and
never turned up again. And Jim--poor Jim!--he was shiftless. Jim was a
tanner. It was no good setting him up in business. Steady income was the
cheapest way. But Jim died of too much time on his hands. His son is in
Mexico somewhere. I sent him there, and I hope he'll stay. If he doesn't,
his salary stops: he is shiftless too. That is not the kind of thing, and
they are not the kind of people you know best, Miss Raglan."

He looked at her, eyes full-front, bravely, honestly, ready to face the