He shrugged. “Kindly omit flowers,” he said. She sighed. “You make it hard for me, don’t you,” she said. “Well, I expected you would. May I sit down a minute?” He hesitated. Then he took a hand from his pocket and motioned to the rocker at the other side of the table. “Sit down, if you want to,” he said. She sat in the rocker. “I shan’t stay very long,” she began. “Foster, tell me: Is this _very_ bad? They are sayin’--oh, they are sayin’ all sorts of things. I read the papers, of course. It seems like a terrible lot of money. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I have heard so much. Is it--will this--” He finished the sentence for her and in his own way. “Will it put me in the poorhouse, you mean?” he suggested. “I presume likely some of my charitable friends are picking out my room there already. Well, no, it won’t do that--quite. They are going to be disappointed. I shall have something left.” “Of course you will. Any sane person would know that, of course.” “Humph! Would they? I don’t know why. But I shall--a little. At least so my lawyers seem to think.” “Must you--must you really pay Elisha Cook all those thousands and thousands of dollars? Have you got to do it?” He straightened. “I’ll pay the last dollar,” he declared, sharply. “And it won’t be paid in notes dated fifty years after death or anything like that. It will be paid cash down, and just as soon as that cash can be raised. You can tell that to any prying busybody that asks you.” She sighed again. “I can hardly believe you have lost that suit,” she said. “I--why, everybody took it for granted you would win. I don’t see how those Supreme Court folks could do such a thing.” His lip curled. “I was a little surprised myself,” he admitted. “So were Cook and his gang, I rather guess.... And yet, maybe I ought to have expected it. Things have been going that way with me lately.... Well, is there anything else you want to say--or find out?” She hesitated. “Why, yes, there is,” she said. “I hardly know how to say it, either. Foster, you’ll have to get rid of--to sell some of your property to pay this awful lot of money, won’t you? That is what they are sayin’ around town. Please don’t mind my askin’. It’s more my business than it sounds. I’ll tell you why in a minute.” He crossed his knees. “I shall sell about everything before I get through, I suppose,” he replied. “Not this house? You won’t have to give up this lovely house?” “No. At least I don’t think so. I shall hang on to it till the last gun fires, anyhow.”