She had the extraordinary knack of making him feel foolish. He always remembered afterward that in the first two meetings with this strange girl he had gone hot and cold either at her words or the inflection of her voice. “That kind of pride which refuses to take money from a woman is very admirable.” There was a note of cold sarcasm in her voice which made him writhe. “It is the attitude of mind behind man’s subconscious sense of superiority to the female of the species! It is not particularly flattering to a woman, but it must be immensely gratifying to a man! May I ask you another question, Mr. Peter Dawlish? Do you intend sinking down into the dregs? Is your vista of life lined on either side by common lodging houses, with a pauper’s graveyard at the end of it?” “I don’t exactly see what you’re driving at.” She had made him angry and was secretly amused. “I shall do my best, naturally, to find work. I had an idea of going abroad.” “Exactly.” She nodded. “To one of the colonies. It is the most popular of all delusions that people without grit or ambition can magically acquire these qualities the moment they go ashore at Quebec or Sydney, or wherever their high spirits lead them.” He was laughing now in spite of himself. “You’ve certainly got a knack of riling a man.” “Haven’t I?” she put in. “I’ll tell you what I was driving at, Mr. Dawlish. For you to refuse a loan of money now suggests that you’re perfectly satisfied in your mind that you will never earn enough to repay the loan. The only way you can justify a refusal of money is to believe that you can never pay it back; that you’re going to belong to the bread lines and the park benches and the public charities.” She saw that her shaft had got home, and went on quickly: “Of course you will do nothing of the sort! You’ve come out of prison with a grievance against the world, and you’re hardly to be blamed for that. I should imagine you are one of the few innocent men who ever went to Dartmoor.” He looked at her shrewdly. “You believe I was innocent?” She nodded. “I’m pretty sure,” she said, and then: “Do you carry a gun?” He laughed aloud. “The price of a Browning pistol would keep me in luxury for two months,” he said. “No, I carry nothing more dangerous than a toothbrush.” The drawer from which she had taken the cigarettes was still open; she put in her hand and took out a small black cash box, and jerked back the lid. “We will do this thing in a businesslike way,” she said. “You will find a paper and pencil on the desk; sign an IOU for twenty pounds. If you believe in your heart of hearts that you’ll be unable to pay me back, that a man of twenty-nine or twenty-eight, or whatever age you are, will never earn a sufficient margin above his cost of living to send back that money in a year or two years, then you need not take a cent. And this little bit of charity, as you call it----” “I’ve called it nothing of the sort.”