In the seclusion of his bedroom, he sat down to smoke a last cigarette and think the thing over in all its aspects. He could see no way out of his difficulties. The thought had something of the dull persistency of a toothache. It refused to leave him. If only this had happened at Oxford, he knew of twenty kindly men who would have rallied round him, and placed portions of their fathers' money at his disposal. But this was July. He would not see Oxford again for months. And, in the meantime, Wesson would be pressing for his money. "Oh, damn!" he said. He had come to this conclusion for the fiftieth time, when the door opened, and his creditor appeared in person. To Spennie, he looked like the embodiment of Fate, a sort of male Nemesis. "I want to have a talk with you, Spennie," said Wesson, closing the door. "Well?" Wesson lit a cigarette, and threw the match out of the window before replying. "Look here, Spennie," he said, "I want to marry Miss McEachern." Spennie was in no mood to listen to the love affairs of other men. "Oh!" he said. "Yes. And I want you to help me." "Help you?" "You must have a certain amount of influence with her. She's your sister." "Stepsister." "Same thing." "Well, anyhow, it's no good coming to me. Nobody's likely to make Molly do a thing unless she wants to. I couldn't, if I tried for a year. We're good pals, and all that, but she'd shut me up like a knife if I went to her and said I wanted her to marry some one." "Not being a perfect fool," said Wesson impatiently, "I don't suggest that you should do that." "What's the idea, then?" "You can easily talk about me to her. Praise me, and so on." Spennie's eyes opened wide. "Praise you? How?" "Thanks," said Wesson, with a laugh. "If you can't think of any admirable qualities in me, you'd better invent some." "I should feel such a silly ass." "That would be a new experience for you, wouldn't it? And then you can arrange it so that I shall get chances of talking to her. You can bring us together." Spennie's eyes became rounder. "You seem to have mapped out quite a programme for me." "She'll listen to you. You can help me a lot." "Can I?" Wesson threw away his cigarette. "And there's another thing," he said. "You can queer that fellow Pitt's game. She's always with him now. You must get her away from him. Run him down to her. And get him out of this place as soon as possible. You invited him here. He doesn't expect to stop here indefinitely, I suppose? If you left, he'd have to, too. What you must do is to go back to London directly after the theatricals are over. He'll have to go with you. Then you can drop him in London and come back."