ugh stunned.

"Well, we're good for it, aren't we?" he said threateningly. "If he's
going to turn ugly about it, here's the house."

"My--house?"

"Yes, your house! I suppose you'd rather raise something on the house
than have the thing come out in the papers."

"Do you think so?" she asked, staring into his bloodshot eyes.

"Yes, I do. I'm damn sure of it!"

"You are wrong."

"You mean that you are not inclined to stand by me?" he demanded.

"Yes, I mean that."

"You don't intend to help me out?"

"I do not intend to--not this time."

He began to show his big teeth, and that nervous snickering "tick"
twitched his upper lip.

"How about the courts?" he sneered. "Do you want to figure in them with
Plank?"

"I don't want to," she said steadily, "but you can not frighten me any
more by that threat."

"Oh! Can't frighten you! Perhaps you think you'll marry Plank when I get
a decree? Do you? Well, you won't for several reasons; first, because
I'll name other corespondents and that will make Plank sick; second,
because Plank wants to marry somebody else and I'm able to assist him.
So where do you come out in the shuffle?"

"I don't know," she said, under her breath, and rested her head against
the back of the chair, as though suddenly tired.

"Well, I know. You'll come out smirched, and you know it," said
Mortimer, gazing intently at her. "Look here, Leila: I didn't come here
to threaten you. I'm no black-mailer; I'm no criminal. I'm simply a
decent sort of a man, who is pretty badly scared over what he's done in
a moment of temptation. You know I had no thought of anything except to
borrow enough on my I. O. U.'s to make a killing at Burbank's. I had to
show them something big, so I filled in that cheque, not meaning to use
it; and before I knew it I'd indorsed it, and was plunging against it.
Then they stacked everything on me--by God, they did! and if I had not
been in the condition I was in I'd have stopped payment. But it was too
late when I realised what I was against. Leila, you know I'm not a bad
man at heart. Can't you help a fellow?"

His manner, completely changed, had become the resentful and fretful
appeal of the victim of plot and circumstance. All the savage brutality
had been eliminated; the sneer, the truculent attempts to browbeat, the
pitiful swagger, the cynical justification, all were gone. It was really
the man himself now, normally scared and repentant; the frightened,
overfed pen