The Inner Shrine. Basil King

she had in the world; while I have still my own money—my dot—and a little over from the sale of my jewels."

      "Well?"

      "If you'd ever seen her, you would know how terrible, how impossible, such a situation is for her. She's the sort of woman who ought to have money—who must have money. And so I thought if I came to you—"

      "I'd give her some."

      "No," Diane said, quickly, with a renewed touch of indignation, "but that you'd help me to do it."

      He looked at her with an odd, upward glance under his shaggy, overhanging brows, while the protruding lower lip went a shade further out.

      "Help you to do it? How?"

      "By letting her have mine."

      Again he looked at her, almost suspiciously.

      "You've got plenty to give away, I suppose?"

      "On the contrary, I've pitifully little; but such as it is, I want her to have it all. She could live on it—with economy; or at least she says I could."

      "And can't you?"

      "I don't want to. As there isn't enough for two, I wish to settle it on her. Isn't that the word?—settle?"

      "It'll do as well as another. And what do you propose to do yourself?"

      "Work."

      Diane forced the word in a little gasp of humiliation, but she got it out.

      "And what'll you work at?"

      "I don't know yet, exactly. I shall have to see. My mother-in-law is going to America; and when she does I'll join her."

      "Humph! My good woman, you wouldn't do more than just keep ahead of starvation."

      "Oh, I shouldn't expect to do more. If I succeeded in that—I should live."

      "How much money have you got?"

      "It's all here," she answered, picking up the black satchel and opening it. "These are my securities, and I'm told they're very good."

      "And do you take them round with you every time you go shopping?"

      "No," Diane smiled, somewhat wanly. "They've been in the hands of the Messrs. Hargous for a good many years past. They are entirely at my own disposal—not in trust, they said; so that I had a right to take them away. I thought I would just bring them to you."

      "What for?"

      "To keep them for my mother-in-law and pay her the interest, or whatever it is."

      "Why didn't you leave them with Hargous?"

      "I was afraid, from some things he said, he would object to what I wanted to do."

      "And what made you think I wouldn't object to it, too?"

      "Two or three reasons. First, Monsieur Hargous is not an American, and you are; and I'd been told that Americans always like to help one another—"

      "I don't know who could have put that notion into your head."

      "And, then, from the few glimpses I've had of you—I will say it!—I thought you looked kind."

      "Well, now that you've had a better look, you see I don't. How much money have you got? You haven't told me that yet."

      "Here's the memorandum. They said they were mostly bonds, and very good ones."