She knew that it would be wiser to demand the bills and herself pay something on account to the desperate creditors, but she revolted from playing the mentor to that extent. When Paula, after a frowning bout with a pencil and a sheet of paper, announced the sum that would tide them over, Isabel was quite aware that she was facing the entire amount. However, she wrote a check, merely extracting a facile promise that it should be devoted to its legitimate purpose, and not to champagne or frills. "I will also send you down one or two tailor suits I have little use for," she added. "Things are so cheap in Europe that I was often betrayed into buying more than I wanted. They can easily be altered." "Thanks!" said Paula. "I am not the style for tailor-made things, but goodness knows I am glad enough to get anything." Isabel glanced doubtfully at the slippers. "I have so many boots. They are rather an extravagance with me--but I am afraid my foot is longer than yours." "Yes," said Paula, complacently, as she threaded a darning-needle. "My foot is quite _fearfully_ small." Isabel, who knew her foot to be far more slender and elegant than the plebeian member that never dared expose itself beyond the instep, nearly overflowed with feminine wrath; but she swallowed it, and remarked in a moment: "I had quite forgotten why I tried to telephone. Mr. Gwynne came down with me and I should like to show him about a bit. Of course I cannot do it alone; what is more, I want him to stay in my house. Nothing could exceed his hospitality to me in England, and I should hate the idea of sending him to a hotel when I have a house with eight bedrooms. Couldn't you and Lyster come up and stay for a couple of days? And if Lyster will show Mr. Gwynne the town, as indeed he has suggested more than once, it must be understood that the expense is mine." "Lyster would never permit it," said Paula, grandly. "You know what he is--he even lends more than he borrows; that is one reason why we are always so hard up. He is simply dying to show Mr. Gwynne about. And that means that he'll spend a month's salary before he gets it." "Then I will pay the month's bills. You must manage it as I wish or I return to-day." Isabel knew that Stone, if not generous in the higher sense, was delighted to play the extravagant host, and never failed to assume the role when he had money or credit. And if he was the freest and most debonair of borrowers at least he repaid when unusually prosperous; and he prided himself upon never having borrowed from a woman. Once when Isabel, who could not help liking him, had offered to pay his debts, he had promptly ascended from the depths of depression in which she had discovered him before his easel, and replied, gayly: "Not yet! The sort of man that borrows money from a woman is the sort of man that has no intention of paying it back. I am not that sort."