"Oh, bother you!" she retorted; "but you promise?"

"On my honor."

"That's enough," she said quietly.

But even when "loafing" as he was this evening, Condy could not rid
himself of the thought and recollection of his novel; resting or
writing, it haunted him. Otherwise he would not have been the
story-writer that he was. From now on until he should set down the
last sentence, the "thing" was never to let him alone, never to allow
him a moment's peace. He could think of nothing else, could talk of
nothing else; every faculty of his brain, every sense of observation or
imagination incessantly concentrated themselves upon this one point.

As they sat in the bay window watching the moon rise, his mind was
still busy with it, and he suddenly broke out:

"I ought to work some kind of a TREASURE into the yarn. What's a story
of adventure without a treasure? By Jove, Blix, I wish I could give my
whole time to this stuff! It's ripping good material, and it ought to
be handled as carefully as glass. Ought to be worked up, you know."

"Condy," said Blix, looking at him intently, "what is it stands in your
way of leaving the 'Times'? Would they take you back if you left them
long enough to write your novel? You could write it in a month,
couldn't you, if you had nothing else to do? Suppose you left them for
a month--would they hold your place for you?"

"Yes--yes, I think they would; but in the meanwhile, Blix--there's the
rub. I've never saved a cent out of my salary. When I stop, my pay
stops, and wherewithal would I be fed? What are you looking for in that
drawer--matches? Here, I've got a match."

Blix faced about at the sideboard, shutting the drawer by leaning
against it. In both hands she held one of the delft sugar-bowls. She
came up to the table, and emptied its contents upon the blue denim
table-cover--two or three gold pieces, some fifteen silver dollars, and
a handful of small change.

Disregarding all Condy's inquiries, she counted it, making little piles
of the gold and silver and nickel pieces.

"Thirty-five and seven is forty-two," she murmured, counting off on her
fingers, "and six is forty-eight, and ten is fifty-eight, and ten is
sixty-eight; and here is ten, twenty, thirty, fifty-five cents in
change." She thrust it all toward him, across the table. "There," she
said, "is your wherewithal."

Condy stared. "My wherewithal!" he muttered.

"It ought to be enough for over a month."

"W