A very slight, almost imperceptible, start ran over her. "Lord Caylesham! Oh, I meet him about sometimes. He's at the Raymores' now and then--and at other places of course." "He never comes here now, does he?" "Very seldom: to a party now and then." She answered without apparent embarrassment, but her eyes were very sharply on the watch; she was on guard against the next blow. "He was a good chap, and very fond of us. Lord, we had some fine old times with Caylesham!" He rose now and stood with his back to the fire. "He must be devilish rich since he came into the property." He looked at her inquiringly. She said nothing. "He's a good chap too. I don't think he'd let a friend go to the wall. What do you think? He was as much your friend as mine, you know." "You'd ask him, John? Oh, I shouldn't do that!" "Why not? He's got plenty." "We see so little of him now; and it's such a lot to ask." "It's not such a lot to him; and it's only accidental that we haven't met lately." He looked at her angrily. "You don't realise what the devil of a mess we're in. We've no choice, I tell you, but to get it from somewhere; and there's nobody else I know to ask. Why, he'll get his money back again, Christine." Her screen was before her face now, so that he saw no more than her brow. "I want you to go and ask him, Christine. That's what you can do for me. You said you wanted to help. Well, go and ask Caylesham to lend me the money." "I can't do that, John." "Why not? Why can't you?" "I should hate your asking him, and I simply couldn't ask him myself." "Why do you hate my asking him? You said nothing against my asking Grantley, and we haven't known him any better." She had no answer to that ready. The thrust was awkward. "Anyhow I couldn't ask him--I really couldn't. Don't press me to do that. If you must ask him, do it yourself. Why should I do it?" "Why, because he's more likely to give it to you." "But that's--that's so unfair. To send a woman because it's harder to refuse her! Oh, that isn't fair, John!" "Fair! Good heavens, can't you understand how we're situated? It's ruin if we don't get it--and I'm damned if I'll live to see it! There!" She saw his passion; his words confirmed her secret fear. She saw, too, how in the stress of danger he would not stand on scruples or be baulked by questions of taste or of social propriety. He saw possible salvation, and jumped at any path to it; and the responsibility of refusing to tread the path he put on her, with all it might mean. "If I went and he said 'No,' you couldn't go afterwards. But you can go first, and you must go." Christine raised her head and shook it. "I can't go," she said. "Why not? You're infernally odd about it! Why can't you go? Is it anything about Caylesham in particular?" "No, no, nothing--nothing like that; but I--I hate to go." "You must do it for me. I don't understand why you hate it so much as all that."