He came near her again and seemed to take a survey of her from the feather in her hat to the toe of her polished boot. 'It's a confounded incongruous thing that you should be ruined,' he grumbled; his tone was a sheer grumble, and it made Trix smile again. 'A fool and her money----' she suggested as a time-honoured explanation. 'But ruin doesn't suit me, there's no doubt of that. Perhaps, after all, I was right to try to be rich, though I tried in such questionable ways.' 'You wouldn't be content to be poor?' Trix was candid with him and with herself. 'Possibly--if everything else was very perfect.' He pressed her hard. 'Could everything else seem perfect?' She laughed uncomfortably. 'You understand wonderfully well, considering----!' A little wave of her arm indicated the room in Danes Inn. 'Yes, I understand,' he agreed gravely. Again she rose. 'Well, I'm a little comforted,' she declared. 'You and Peggy and the rest of you always do me good. You always seemed the alternative in the background. You're the only thing now--or I'll try to make you. That doesn't sound overwhelmingly cordial, but it's well-meant, Mr. Newton.' She held out her hand to him, but added as an afterthought, 'And you will tell me what to do about the investments, won't you?' 'And what will you do about the other man?' Her answer was to give him both hands, saying, 'Help me!' He looked long at her and at last answered, 'Yes, if you'll let me.' 'Thanks,' she murmured, pressing his hands and then letting them go with a sigh of relief. He smiled at her, but not very brightly; there was an effort about it. She understood that the subject was painful to him, because it suggested degradation for her; she had a hope that it was distasteful for another reason; to her these were explanations enough for the forced aspect of his smile. He took up the paper again, and appeared to read it over. 'Not a bad list,' he said. 'You ought to be able to realise pretty well, as prices go now; they're not ruling high, you know.' 'What a lot you learn from your eyrie here!' 'All that comes in in business,' he assured her. 'No, they're not so bad, except the speculations, of course.' 'Except Glowing Stars! But, after all, most of them are Glowing Stars.' He appeared to consider again; then he said slowly, and as though every word cost him a thought, 'I shouldn't altogether despair even of Glowing Stars. No, don't be in a hurry to despair of Glowing Stars.' 'What?' Incredulity cried out in her tone, mingled with the fancied hope of impossible good fortune. 'You can't conceivably mean that Mr. Fricker is wrong about them? Oh, if that were true!' 'Does it make all that difference?' 'Yes, yes, yes! Not the money only, but the sense of folly--of childish miserable silliness.' She was eager to show him how much that fancied distant hope could mean.