He went on to sketch his plans for the immediate future. His most trying lack was that of ready cash. The parental system had always been generous as to things, but penurious in money. In the matter of things, he would be as extravagant as he reasonably liked, so long as the bills were sent to dad. Before he went to work at the bank, his allowance in money wouldn’t have kept him in cigarettes. Even now, he was only on the weekly pay roll for thirty-eight dollars and sixty-six cents per, handed him in a pay envelope. Food, lodging, clothes, saddle horses, motor cars—all these were thrown in extra; but in actual coin he didn’t handle more than his two thousand dollars a year, like any other clerk. Jennie could see, therefore, that, to begin with, their position would be difficult, though only to begin with. He could send her a little money while he was away, but it wouldn’t be very much. "I don’t want you to send me any," she said, hastily. "You forget that I’m your husband, dear. If I didn’t, you could bring an action for divorce on the ground of nonsupport." This idea being new to Jennie, she had it explained to her, rejecting it as a resource because it was unromantic. "And so, to be on the safe side against that," he laughed, "I’ve got this for you now." Slipping an envelope from his pocket, he forced it into the hand he was holding. "It’s only a hundred dollars—" he was beginning to explain. She snatched her hand away as if she had been stung. "Oh, Bob, I can’t!" That situation amused him. It was one more proof of the naïve honesty of the little girl. He knew how hard up she was, how hard up all the family must be, and yet money didn’t tempt her. "You’re a funny little kid," he laughed, drawing her as near to him as the park laws would permit. "You’d think I didn’t have a right to take care of you." But Jennie was feeling that if she took this money she would be bound to him by principles more acute than the promises she had made before the parson. "No, Bob, I can’t. Please don’t make me—_please_!" But in the end he forced it on her, and she stowed it away in her little bag. By that time, too, she had reviewed the family situation. With a hundred dollars in her possession they could less easily be sold out of house and home at the end of the following week. That calamity, at least, could be dodged, whatever other misfortune might overtake herself. She might decide that to be sold out of house and home would be easier than to bind herself further to Bob by using his money; but, still, she would have the choice. As to the twenty-five thousand, there was always the possibility that it might not come in time. She had not yet seen Hubert; she couldn’t see him till Bob had sailed. When she did, the other woman might be in her place and her heart would have to break in spite of everything. Better it should break with a hundred dollars in her pocket than that she should be helpless to stay the family disaster.