nt Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect which
opened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loan
him five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security!

"What security do you want?" he asked in a husky voice.

"Security? I don't understand about that," she replied. "I'd not offer
you the money if I didn't think you were an honest man, and an honest
man would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn't pay me back, security or
no security."

"He'd have to pay you back if the security was right to start with,"
Jean Jacques insisted. "But you don't want security, because you think
I'm an honest man! Well, for sure you're right. I am honest. I never
took a cent that wasn't mine; but that's not everything. If you lend
you ought to have security. I've lost a good deal from not having
enough security at the start. You are willing to lend me money without
security--that's enough to make me feel thirty again, and I'm fifty--I'm
fifty," he added, as though with an attempt to show her that she
could not think of him in any emotional way; though the day when his
flour-mill was burned he had felt the touch of her fingers comforting
and thrilling.

"You think Jean Jacques Barbille's word as good as his bond?" he
continued. "So it is; but I'm going to pull this thing through alone.
That's what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant it
too--help of God, it is the truth!"

He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, and
had not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now be
insolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacques
was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of
his own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M.
Mornay had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the
tribute to his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though
it was to the advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another
start; though in reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier,
who knew his man and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done.

Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied
with allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things.
She could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain
speaking and to be literally sure.

"Are you going to take it?" she asked abruptly.

He could not bear t