"Oh, I really didn't," declared she, with all the earnestness of a generous nature, for she read into his heightened color and averted eyes the feelings she herself would have had before an unjust suspicion. "It was merely an idea. And I didn't blame you--not in the least. It would have been the sensible----" Next thing, this child-woman, this mysterious mind of mixed precocity and innocence, would be showing that she had guessed a Cousin Nell. "You are far too modest," interrupted he with a flirtatious smile. "You didn't realize how strong an impression you made. No, I really broke my leg. Don't you suppose I knew the twenty-five in the pocketbook wouldn't carry you far?" He saw--and naturally misunderstood--her sudden change of expression as he spoke of the amount. He went on apologetically, "I intended to bring more when I came. I was afraid to put money in the note for fear it'd never be delivered, if I did. And didn't I tell you to write--and didn't I give you my address here? Would I have done that, if I hadn't meant to stand by you?" Susan was convinced, was shamed by these smooth, plausible assertions and explanations. "Your father's house--it's a big brick, with stone trimmings, standing all alone outside the little town--isn't it?" Spenser was again coloring deeply. "Yes," admitted he uneasily. But Susan didn't notice. "I saw the doctor--and your family--on the veranda," she said. He was now so nervous that she could not but observe it. "They gave out that it was only a sprain," said he, "because I told them I didn't want it known. I didn't want the people at the office to know I was going to be laid up so long. I was afraid I'd lose my job." "I didn't hear anything about it," said she. "I only saw as I was going by on a boat." He looked disconcerted--but not to her eyes. "Well--it's far in the past now," said he. "Let's forget--all but the fun." "Yes--all but the fun." Then very sweetly, "But I'll never forget what I owe you. Not the money--not that, hardly at all--but what you did for me. It made me able to go on." "Don't speak of it," cried he, flushed and shamefaced. "I didn't do half what I ought." Like most human beings he was aware of his more obvious--if less dangerous--faults and weaknesses. He liked to be called generous, but always had qualms when so called because he knew he was in fact of the familiar type classed as generous only because human beings are so artless in their judgments as to human nature that they cannot see that quick impulses quickly die. The only deep truth is that there are no generous natures but just natures--and they are rarely classed as generous because their slowly formed resolves have the air of prudence and calculation. In the hotel she went to the dressing-room, took twenty-five dollars from the money in her stocking. As soon as they were seated in the restaurant she handed it to him.