"Mind your own affairs. Girls should be seen and not heard. Some girls are seen altogether too much. Your father and Dic will arrange this affair between themselves without your help. It is purely an affair of business. Dic, of course, wishes to invest his money; and if your father, after due consideration, is willing to help him, I am sure he should feel obliged to us, and no doubt he will. He would be an ungrateful person indeed if he did not. I am sure your father's note is as good as the bank. He pays his just debts. He is my husband and could not do otherwise. No man lives who has not at all times received his dues from us to the last penny. If a penny is coming to us, we want it. If we owe one, we pay it. My father, Judge Anselm Fisher, was the same way. His maxim was, 'Justice to all and confusion to sinners.' He died beholden to no man. Neither have I ever been beholden to any one. Dic is fortunate, indeed, in finding so good an investment for his money, at interest; very fortunate indeed." "I don't want interest," said the too eager Dic. "Indeed, that is generous in you," returned Mrs. Bays, though she was determined that Dic should not succeed in casting the burden of an obligation upon her shoulders. "But of course you know your money will be safe, and that is a great deal in these days of weak banks and robbers. If I were in Mr. Bays's place, I should pause and consider the matter carefully and prayerfully before assuming responsibility for anybody's money. If it should be stolen from him, he, and not you, would lose it. I think it is very kind in him to undertake the responsibility." That phase of the question slightly dimmed its rosiness; but Dic still hoped that lending the money would make smoother his path to Rita. At first he had not foreseen that he, and not the Bayses, would rest under an obligation. To the girl the lending of this money meant Indianapolis, Williams, and separation from Dic. THE TOURNAMENT CHAPTER X THE TOURNAMENT Mr. Bays, rash man that he was, without care or prayer, accepted Dic's loan and was thankful, despite the good wife's effort to convince him he was conferring a favor. Her remarks had been much more convincing to Dic than to her husband. The latter could not entirely throw off the feeling that Dic was doing him a favor. The money was to be delivered and the note executed in ten days, Mrs. Margarita insisting that Dic should be responsible for his own money until it was needed by her husband.