know
what I got for those six I sent to Westbury? Just twelve hundred dollars
from Fleetwood--the bargaining shopkeeper! Twelve hundred! Think of
that! And along comes Granby and sells a single ram for six thousand
plunks!"

Leila's head was lowered. He could not see her expression, but he had
always been confident of his ability to talk himself out of trouble,
so he rambled on in pretence of camaraderie, currying favour, as he
believed, ingratiating himself with the coarse bluntness that served him
among some men, even among some women.

"We'll fix it somehow," he said reassuringly; "don't you worry, Leila.
I've confidence in you, little girl! You've got me out of sticky messes
before, eh? Well, we've weathered a few, haven't we?"

Even the horrible parody on wedded loyalty left her silent, unmoved,
dark eyes brooding; and he began to grow a little restless and anxious
as his jocularity increased without a movement in either response or
aversion from his wife.

"You needn't be scared, if I'm not," he said reproachfully. "The house
is worth two hundred and fifty thousand, and there's only fifty on it
now. If that fat, Dutch skinflint, Plank, shows his tusks, we can clap
on another fifty." And as she made no sound or movement in reply: "As
far as Plank goes, haven't I done enough for him to square it? What have
we ever got out of him, except a thousand or two now and then when the
cards went against me? If I took it, it was practically what he owes
me. And if he thinks it's too much--look here, Leila! I've a trick up my
sleeve. I can make good any time I wish to. I'm in a position to marry
that man to the girl he's mad about--stark, raving mad."

Mrs. Mortimer slowly raised her head and looked at her husband.

"Leroy, are you mad?"

"I! Not much!" he exclaimed gleefully. "I can make him the husband of
the most-run-after girl in New York--if I want to. And at the same
time I can puncture the most arrogant, the most cold-blooded, selfish,
purse-proud, inflated nincompoop that ever sat at the head of a
director's table. O-ho! Now you're staring, Leila. I can do it; I can
make good. What are you worrying about? Why, I've got a hundred ways to
square that cheque, and each separate way is a winner."

He rose, shook out the creases in his trousers, and adjusted the squat,
gold fob which ornamented his protruding waistcoat.

"So you'll fix it, won't you, Leila?" he said, apparently oblivious that
he had expressed him