She frowned with impatience as she turned toward him. "For heaven's
sake, Joel," she said, sharply--"you become a bore with that stupid
nonsense. I want to be patient with you--I do indeed sympathize with you
in your misfortunes--you know that well enough--but you're very tiresome
with that eternal harping on what I believed and what I didn't believe.
Now, are you going to stop to supper or not?--because if you are I must
send the maid out. And there's another thing--would it be of any help to
you to bring your things here from the hotel? You can have Alfred's room
as well as not--till Christmas, at least."

"Supposing I couldn't get my luggage out of the hotel till I'd settled
my bill," suggested Thorpe tentatively, in a muffled voice.

The practical woman reflected for an instant. "I was thinking," she
confessed then, "that it might be cheaper to leave your things there,
and buy what little you want--I don't imagine, from what I've seen, that
your wardrobe is so very valuable--but no, I suppose the bill ought to
be paid. Perhaps it can be managed; how much will it be?"

Thorpe musingly rose to his feet, and strolled over to her chair. With
his thick hands on his sister's shoulders he stooped and kissed her on
the forehead.

"You believe in me now, anyway, eh, Lou?" he said, as he straightened
himself behind her.

The unaccustomed caress--so different in character from the perfunctory
salute with which he had greeted her on his arrival from foreign parts,
six months before--brought a flush of pleased surprise to her plain
face. Then a kind of bewilderment crept into the abstracted gaze she was
bending upon the fireless grate. Something extraordinary, unaccountable,
was in the manner of her brother. She recalled that, in truth, he was
more than half a stranger to her. How could she tell what wild,
uncanny second nature had not grown up in him under those
outlandish tropical skies? He had just told her that his ruin was
absolute--overwhelming--yet there had been a covert smile in the
recesses of his glance. Even now, she half felt, half heard, a chuckle
from him, there as he stood behind her!

The swift thought that disaster had shaken his brain loomed up and
possessed her. She flung herself out of the chair, and, wheeling, seized
its back and drew it between them as she faced him. It was with a stare
of frank dismay that she beheld him grinning at her.

"What"--she began, stammering--"What is the matter, Joel?"