"Yes, on the same terms that he suggests there."
"Well, Imason's a good fellow, but he's a banker, and--well, I should think he expects to get it back. I say, John's been having a bit of a plunge, eh? Consequently he's in deep water now? Is he very much cut up?"
"Terribly! It means ruin, and the loss of his reputation, and--oh, I don't know what besides!"
"Poor old John! He's a good chap, isn't he?"
She made no answer to that, and he muttered:
"Frank," she said, "I've done what I had to do, what I promised to. I've shown you the paper; I've told you how much this money means to us; I've told you it means avoiding ruin and bankruptcy and all that disgrace. That's what John made me promise to tell you, and its all I have to tell you from him. I've done what I said I would on his behalf."
"Yes, yes, that's all right. Don't distress yourself, Christine. I just want to have another look at this paper, and to think it over a little. It is a goodish bit of money, you know. But then old John's always been a good friend of mine, and if times weren't so uncommon bad----"
He wrinkled his brow over the paper again.
"And now I have to speak on my own account. Frank, you must find some good, some plausible, reason for refusing. You mustn't lend John the money."
He looked up from the paper in great surprise.
"You see, John doesn't know the truth," she answered.
He rose and stood by the fire, looking down on her thoughtfully.
"No, of course he doesn't, or--or you wouldn't be here," he said after a pause.
"And if he did know, he'd never ask you for the money," she said.
Caylesham made a wry little grimace. That might be true of John, but he would hesitate to say the same about every fellow. Christine, however, did not see the grimace.
"And you don't want me to lend it--not though it means all this to John?"
"I don't want you to lend it, whatever it means. Pray don't lend it, Frank!"
"Is that---- Well, I don't quite know how to put it. I mean, is that on John's account or on your own?"
"I can't give you reasons; I can't put them in words. It's just terribly hateful to me."
He was puzzled by the point of view, and still more by finding it in her. Perhaps the last six years had made a difference in her way of looking at things; they had made none in his.