a few moments. He decided not to follow her
lead. He knew that if she had anything explicit to say about Conward
she would say it when she felt the time to be opportune, and not until
then. He returned to the matter of her speculation.

"How much did you invest?"

"Not much. Just what I had."

"You mean all your savings?"

"Why not? It's all right, isn't it?"

He had risen and was standing again by the window. The long line of
lights stretched out until they became mere diamond points on the
velvet bosom of the night. Motor cars sped noiselessly to and fro,
save where, at the corner below, chauffeurs exercised their sirens.
But neither the lights, nor the night, nor the movement and noises of
the street had any part in the young man's consciousness.

"It's all right, isn't it?" she repeated.

"I'm afraid it isn't," he said at length, in a restrained voice. "I'm
afraid it isn't."

"What do you mean?" she demanded. There was an accusation in her eyes
that was hard to face.

"Bert," he continued, "did it ever occur to you that this thing must
have an end--that we can't go on forever lifting ourselves by our own
bootstraps? We have built a city here, a great and beautiful city,
almost as a wizard might build it by magic over night. There was room
for it here; there was occasion; there was justification. But there
was neither occasion nor justification for turning miles and miles of
prairie land into city lots--lots which in the nature of things cannot
possibly, in your time or mine, be required for city purposes. These
lots should be producing; wheat, oats, potatoes, cows, butter--that is
what we must build our city on. We have been considering the effect
rather than the cause. The cause is the country, the neglected
country, and until it overtakes the city we must stand still, if we do
not go back. Our prosperity has been built on borrowed money, and we
have forgotten that borrowed money must, sometime, be repaid.
Meanwhile, in the heart of the greatest agricultural country in the
world, we bring our potatoes across the American continent and our
butter across the Pacific ocean."

He had spoken with effort, as one who makes a bitter confession, yet
tries to state the case fairly, without excuses and without violence.

"You mean that the boom is about to burst?" she said.

"Not exactly burst. It will not be so sudden as that. It will just
ooze away, like a toy balloon pricked with a pin."