"Settle down to this kind of thing?" said Girard thoughtfully. "Well, I did think of it last year, when I undertook those commissions for you. But what's the use--yet awhile, at any rate? You see, I can always make enough money for what I want and to spare, and there's nobody else to care. I like my liberty! The love of trade doesn't take hold of me, somehow--and you have to have such a tremendous amount of capital to keep your place. By the way, have you sold the island yet?" The island was a small one up near Nova Scotia, taken once for a debt. "Not yet." Girard gave him a quick glance. "How are things going with you?" "Fine," said Justin in a conventionally prosperous tone, with a sudden sight of a bottomless pit yawning below him. "I've a few things on my mind lately--but they're all right now. By the way, how do you like it at the Snows'?" "Oh, all right." Girard's gray eyes smiled in an irrepressible smile. "I score high at present. They all approve of me, and I am told that I am the only man who has never run into the Boston fern or got tangled in the Wandering Jew. Miss Bertha and I have long talks together--she's great. As for Mrs. Snow--she heard Sutton speak of her the other night to Ada as 'the old lady,' I assure you that since--" He shook his head, and both men laughed. "Come to see us. Miss Linden is back with us again," said Justin hospitably. "Thank you," said Girard, an indefinable stiffening change instantly coming over him. "By the way, I mustn't forget what I came for, before I hurry off." He took some bills out of his long, flat leather wallet as he rose. "Do you remember lending that sixty dollars to my friend Keston last year? He turned up yesterday, and asked me to see that you got this." "I'd forgotten all about it," averred Justin. He had not realized until he took the bills that he had been keeping up all day by main strength, with that caved-in sensation of there being nothing back of it--nothing back of it. There are times when the touch of money is as the elixir of life. Justin, holding on by the skin of his teeth for ten thousand dollars, and needing imperatively at least as much more, felt that with this paltry sixty dollars it was suddenly possible to draw a free breath, felt a sheer lightness of spirit that showed how terrible was the persistent weight under which he was living. The very feeling of those separate bills in his pocket made him calmly sanguine. He got ready to go home a little earlier than usual, saying lightly to Harker, who had come in for his signature to some papers: "Those payments will begin to straggle in next week. Coneways' isn't due until the 31st--the very last minute! But he's always prompt, thank Heaven--what are you doing?" "Knocking on wood," said Harker, with a grim smile. "Oh, knock on wood all you want to," returned Justin.