'You have all the elements of greatness,' said he, with a gravity that was affected and yet did not seem entirely pretence. 'You've got three thousand five hundred pounds out of somebody----' 'I've got four thousand,' interrupted Peggy. 'But five hundred was----' 'That's not there! That's kept for me. That's the most splendid part of it all!' In that indeed seemed to her to lie the finest proof of victory. The rest might have been shame; that her five hundred lay intact meant change of heart. She had not pressed her five hundred on Airey Newton. There are times when everything should be taken, as there are when all should be given; her instinct had told her that. Fricker smiled again; his deft fingers parted the notes into two uneven heaps. The fingers seemed to work of their own accord and to have eyes of their own, for his eyes did not leave Peggy Ryle's face. 'Is the man in love with you?' He could not help returning to that explanation. 'Not a farthing, if he had been!' cried Peggy. 'Then he's an old man, or a fool.' 'Why can't I be angry with you?' she cried in an amused despair. 'Are--are greed and--nonsense the only things you know?' 'Are you finding new words for love?' he asked with a sneer. Peggy laughed. 'That's really not bad,' she admitted candidly. Under the circumstances she did not grudge Fricker a verbal victory. The poor man was badly beaten; let him have his gibe! He had made his two heaps of notes--a larger and a smaller; his hand wavered undecidedly over them. 'I can trust you to do what you said you would?' she asked suddenly. 'No less--and no more. That's an essential part of my policy,' he assured her. 'And Mrs. Trevalla is free of Glowing Stars? And you'll tell her what you promised?' 'I'll take them over, with the liability. Yes, and I'll tell her.' He spoke rather absently; his mind seemed to be on something else. When he spoke again, there was an odd--perhaps an unprecedented--embarrassment in his manner. 'I see my way to doing something with Glowing Stars. Money must go into it--the calls must be paid--but I think some of the money might come out again.' He looked at Peggy; he saw her gloriously triumphant eyes, her cheeks flushed with the intoxication of achievement. The impulse was on him to exalt her more. 'I should have done very well if I'd bargained with you for three thousand.' 'It would have seemed almost as impossible. And you wouldn't! You wanted more than market value for your pound of flesh!' He pushed the smaller of the two heaps that he had made across to her with a swift motion of his hand; the hand trembled a little, but his voice was hard and dry. 'Take back the extra thousand and call it square, Miss Ryle,' said he. Peggy laid down her cigarette and stared at the heap of notes he pushed across to her. 'What?' she exclaimed in the despair of blank astonishment; she could not grasp the idea. 'Take those back. I shall do very well with these.'