re he'--that meant you--'he will be
ruined. He imagines the worst is over for him, when in fact they've
only begun.'"

"They!" I repeated. "Who are 'they'? The Langdons?"

"I think so," she replied, with an effort. "She did not say--I've told
you her exact words--as far as I can."

"Well," said I, "and why didn't you go?"

She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look
into my eyes, she replied: "I shall not discuss that. You probably
misunderstand, but that is your own affair."

"You believed what she said about me, of course," said I.

"I neither believed nor disbelieved," she answered, indifferently, as
she rose to go. "It does not interest me."

"Come here," said I. And I waited until she reluctantly joined me at
the window. I pointed to the steeple of the church across the way.
"You could as easily throw down that steeple by pushing against it
with your bare hands," I said to her, "as 'they,' whoever they are,
could put me down. They might take away my money. But if they did,
they would only be giving me a lesson that would teach me how more
easily to get it back again. I am not a bundle of stock certificates
or a bag of money. I am--here," and I tapped my forehead.

She forced a faint, scornful smile. She did not wish me to see her
belief of what I said.

"You think that is vanity," I went on. "But you will learn, sooner or
later, the difference between boasting and simple statement of fact.
You will learn that I do not boast. What I said is no more a boast
than for a man with legs to say, 'I can walk.' Because you have known
only legless men, you exaggerate the difficulty of walking. It's as
easy for me to make money as it is for some people to spend it."

It is hardly necessary for me to say I was not insinuating anything
against her people. But she was just then supersensitive on the
subject, though I did not suspect it. She flushed hotly. "You will not
have any cause to sneer at my people on that account hereafter," she
said. "I settled _that_ to-day."

"I was not sneering at them," I protested. "I wasn't even thinking of
them. And--you must know that it's a favor to me for anybody to ask me
to do anything that will please you."

She made a gesture of impatience. "I see I'd better tell you why--part
of the reason why--I did not go with them to-day. I insisted that they
give back all they have taken from you. And when they refused, I
refused to go."

"I don't care why you r