"The flood? Yes, my dear, I did. I've only been a silent partner for
years--and that in a very small way. But I regret to say that the
young asses who have been running it have got into trouble. And they
propose going into bankruptcy, confound them! It is very annoying,"
Lloyd Pryor ended calmly,

"But I don't understand," she said; "what have you to do with it?"

"Well, I've got to turn to and pay their damned debts."

"Pay their debts? But why? Does the law make you?"

"The law?" he said, looking at her with cold eyes. "I suppose you mean
statute law? No, my dear, it doesn't."

"Then I can't understand it," she declared laughing.

"It's nothing very abstruse. I can't have stockholders who trusted our
old firm cheated by a couple of cousins of mine. I've assumed the
liabilities--that's all."

"But you don't _have_ to, by law?" she persisted, still bewildered.

"My dear Nelly, I don't do things because of the _law_," he said
dryly. "But never mind; it is going to give me something to do. Tell
me about yourself. How are you?"

"I'm--pretty lonely, Lloyd," she said.

And he answered, sympathetically, that he had been afraid of that.