"Would you mind telling me how much you lent him last time? I was with him when he cashed the check. I saw the name, not the amount." "It was nothing of any importance," said Odd shortly. He exaggerated now. The Captain had told him that the furniture would be seized unless some creditors were satisfied, and, with a very decided hint as to the inadvisability of another trip for retrievement to the Riviera, Peter had given him the money, ten thousand francs; a sum certainly of importance, for Odd was no millionaire. Katherine looked hard at him. "You won't tell me because you want to spare me." "My dear Katherine, I certainly want to spare you anything that would add a straw's weight to your distress; you have no need, no right to shoulder this. It is your father's affair--and mine. You must not give it another thought." "That is so easy!" Katherine clenched her hand on the mantelpiece. She was not given to vehemence of demonstration; the little gesture showed a concentration of bitter rebellion. Odd, standing beside her, put his own hand over hers; patted it soothingly. "It's rather hard on me, you know, a slur on my friendship, that you should take a merely conventional obligation so to heart." Katherine now looked down into the fire. "Take it to heart? What else have I had on my heart for years and years? It is a mere variation on the same theme, a little more poignantly painful than usual, that is all! What a life to lead. What a future to look forward to. I wonder what else I shall have to endure." Odd had never seen her before in this mood of fierce hopelessness. "Our poverty has poisoned everything, everything. I have had no youth, no happiness. Every moment of forgetfulness means redoubled keenness of gnawing anxiety. Debts! Duns! harassing, sordid cares that drag one down. Mr. Odd, I have had to coax butchers and bakers; I have had to plead with horrible men with documents of all varieties! I have had to pawn my trinkets, and all with surface gayety; everything must be kept from mamma, and papa's extravagance is incorrigible." Odd was all grave amazement, grave pity, and admiration. "You are a brave woman, Katherine." "No, no; I am not brave. I am frightened--frightened to death sometimes. I see before me either a hideous struggle with want or--a _mariage de convenance_. I have none of the classified, pigeon-holed knowledge one needs nowadays to become a teaching drudge, and I can't make up my mind to sell myself, though, in spite of my lack of beauty and lack of money, that means of escape has often presented itself. I have had many offers of marriage. Only I _can't_." Odd was silent under the stress of a new thought, an entirely new thought.