Cosmo prided himself—and justly—upon his reticence: but then Cosmo had never been tortured till now ... he said to himself that Harbury was an older man ... he knew him for a silent and a wise man ... he looked at his companion, a side-long look, and said, blurting it out as though to get it over, but putting on the conventional smile wherein very inexperienced men of breeding hide all extremity and confusion: “I’ve got to make a payment to-morrow at ten o’clock—and I must spend my time looking for it—but I sha’n’t find it, Harbury. It isn’t there, you know.” Then he paused, glad to have found words of a virile flippancy. Mr Harbury wanted to laugh, but he looked grave. “How much, Burden?” he said. “I didn’t sleep all night,” answered Cosmo savagely. “Yes—but how much is it?” pressed Mr Harbury with patience. “Oh!... It doesn’t matter—so long as it’s out of reach, anyhow.” Mr Harbury was decisive: “It’s never any good mentioning the _word_ money unless you speak of exact sums,” he said. Mr Harbury knew what he was talking about, and Cosmo’s hesitation began to yield: he wavered a moment, and Mr Harbury sat quite still, as fishermen do over dark smooth waters at evening. Young men are often timorous in the presence of great sums of money; they do not understand the modern ease and fluidity, the come and go, of wealth. Cosmo rather whispered than said, “A thousand.” Mr Harbury smiled, so spontaneously and so brightly, that he seemed for a moment hardly older than Cosmo himself. “My dear fellow...!” he said. “My dear fellow.” Then his smile broke into an honest little laugh. He sat up in the deep padded chair and put one hand upon Cosmo’s knee: “Is that what has been worrying you, Cosmo?” Cosmo Burden started at the noise of his own name. He had taken Mr Harbury’s popularity for granted during full four years, but he had not quite understood why that quiet, dark-haired man had made so many friends, nor why he had lost none; why, living at some distance, travelling much, appearing only as a visitor or guest, he had increased his value till he seemed a kind of centre for all that counted most in the University. He knew now: Mr Harbury had used his travels; he could help. Mr Harbury also felt a kind of gladness at the same moment; for he knew that he had gained one more friend, and friends to all such men are (if we only knew it!) the dearest part of the comfort they so easily attain. He said it again, laughing in the goodness of his heart: “Is that what has been worrying you, Cosmo?” “It is enough to worry about,” said Cosmo. He said it with his head still down, and he said it miserably. But there was hope in his voice. Mr Harbury lay back in the attitude of a man wearied by repetition. “There are fifty men who would give it to you within the next two hours,” he said. Cosmo, who had read many books, shook his head with a certain firmness, answering: “I am determined not to borrow from my friends.”