“Of course you can’t. I could have told you that. Do you know how much it costs to run mine? Well, I won’t tell you. I’ll place a check to your credit to-day, my dear. And it will make me very happy.” “That wasn’t what I came about, but it’s what I knew you’d suggest,” she said, smiling at him. “I want to mortgage my house.’ “Why? Mortgage? You’ll do nothing of the sort” “Well, I could sell it, but I’d like to live there during the winter, you see. Then I could sell it later. I thought of a mortgage in bed last night. I don’t quite know how to do it, but I’m sure that would be a way out. You’ll help me, won’t you?” The old man got up and walked about the office angrily. “You’re making me very angry, Cecily. Very angry.” “I don’t mean to. I don’t want to. But I’ve got to do this the fair way. I can’t take money under these circumstances.” “You’re obsessed,” said Mr. Warner. “Now, look here, Cecily, I’m your father, you know.” “I know you are--and you’re more than most fathers ever could be, and so you must see that----” “I’ve a right to support my own grandchildren.” “If they were in need,” said Cecily, slowly, “it would be different. But they aren’t. They could live on my money easily if we had a flat or a little house. I’d sooner have a little house than a flat. But to keep that big house running on your money--I can’t do it. Don’t you see that the children are my job--all I have left! I want them to be mine, and I can’t feel that they are unless I do it.” Mr. Warner looked at her with his brows knit. “How much is the house worth? Fifty thousand?” “Forty-five, wasn’t it?” “I’ll see about your mortgage, Cecily, but you must promise not to sell it or do anything further without consulting me.” She thanked him and promised and left the office, conscious as she was nowadays that a buzz of comment and gossip followed her. Mr. Warner, watching from the window, saw that she was not driving a car, saw her cross the street on foot. “Steel underneath,” he said aloud. At noon he met Dick at the club and called him. “Do you know Cecily is mortgaging her house?” “Hell! And I deposited money to her credit last month.” “She won’t touch it, Dick.” “One of those ridiculous notions. The money isn’t important. I argued about that, Mr. Warner. I did my level best. It makes me feel a fool, you know.” “You haven’t argued any more than I have. But I guess she’s got an idea back of it all. She wants to feel that it’s she who looks after the kids.” A dull flush crept up into Dick’s cheeks. “She looks after them, anyway, no matter whether I pay a bill here and there or not, doesn’t she? And it puts me in a rotten position.” Mr. Warner laid a comradely arm over Dick’s shoulders. “You are in a rotten position,” he agreed, “and you got yourself into it--wanting to have everything in the world. Cecily is worth sacrificing some things for, my boy.”