He crossed to the sofa, threw himself beside her, and laxly hooked his long arm round her firm waist. “Get me the couple of hun, Pam,” he said tenderly, “and I’ll be off. Nancy is a pretty imbecile. I’ll go to town. I’ll keep out of mischief, sail just within the wind--don’t bother your dear anxious head about me. Marry old Jeth; cut a figure in the neighborhood. With his money and your brains you can be county swells.” “And you?” “I told you--don’t worry. Forget No. 4658.” She started nervously. “How can you think of that time without a shudder? Even now, when I go to sleep at night, the prison wall shoots up and blinds me. Yet you--were inside. And you say that number--the number that _was_ you--without a tremor. I’m afraid to let you go. It will happen again.” “Not if I know it. I was green. Overent and Bladden victimized me. Only fools are found out. Sin is a short name for stupidity. I shall never overshoot the mark again. There are fifty ways--five hundred--of making a fortune. No man but a fool need work--in these commercial days. Milligan cleared fifty thousand only last week, just by buying a concern and turning it into a company. He’s a prominent man, a politician, a baronet. Ten years ago he kept a newspaper and sweetstuff shop at Hornsey. Lady Milligan, whose drawing-room gowns are sketched in the fashion papers, boiled toffee and sold it in pennyworths. No one calls Milligan a blackguard.” “He must have swindled somebody. It’s impossible else.” “Of course he did. But everybody swindles everybody else--that’s the commercial spirit; it has made us a great nation.” “Jethro----” “Was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is a fool; without his inheritance, he’d be plowing and hay-making. Why discuss idly and waste time? The dinner gong will sound soon.” He took out his watch. It was a costly gold hunter, which he had bought in his brief prosperous time. He had put it in her hands only half an hour before his arrest--when Overent and Bladden had flown with forty thousand pounds and he was madly packing his bag in the Bloomsbury back bedroom. “What am I to do?” “Get two hundred pounds out of Jethro. I will go away and make my fortune. Some day, when you read the papers--a day old,” he sneered, “you’ll see my name as chairman of a public dinner, or recipient of a testimonial. I mean to be generous--when generosity can be made to pay. I’ll present my district with a public library, a clock tower, or a drinking fountain, and be knighted.” “You’ll come to Folly Corner sometimes?” “Never.” Even his honor, just because he was a man, was stronger than hers. “I thought at first that it would work--you as Jethro’s wife, I as Nancy’s husband. But you are one of those emotional women who go to the devil and drag a man with them. When I leave here it will be for good. You won’t even know my address.” “I couldn’t bear it.”