While he was breakfasting the next morning, however, he resolved to set convention at defiance for this once, at least. Almost as fervent as his desire to hear Miss Rives’ story was his eagerness to set himself right with her. He did not wish her to labor an hour longer than was absolutely necessary under the impression that his failure to call in answer to her letter was due to any possible lack of interest on his part. He must see her this morning, and so he determined to send up some flowers with his card, and the intimation that he would follow himself in an hour or so. On his way out he stopped at the desk to obtain some more money from the wallet he had left in the safe. He had done this every morning, but now, as he opened it, the realization came to him for the first time that his supply was growing low. The thousand dollars had been placed in one compartment, leaving his expense money in another, and, as he took out about a hundred dollars, he was astonished to find how comparatively little was left. He was not conscious of having been especially extravagant, but he had obeyed the unknown donor’s injunctions to the letter, and had not spared expense. "By Jove!" he muttered, as he left the hotel and walked toward Fifth Avenue. "I’ll have to go slow, or I’ll be dipping into my capital. It’s astonishing how money melts away on comparatively little things. I must begin to economize." Evidently he did not mean to begin quite at once, however. He made his way directly to an expensive flower shop on the avenue, where he selected a huge box of very costly roses, wrote a line on his card, and ordered them sent at once to Miss Rives. As he left the shop he consoled himself for the flatness of his bill case by the reflection that this was a private matter, which could be paid out of his own money. The hour and a half which followed seemed to pass on leaden wings. Barry had never known a period of time to drag so boringly. He could not enjoy his morning walk, and, though he had several errands to do, which ordinarily would have consumed the better part of an hour, it seemed as if the salesmen were conspiring to attend to his wants with positively supernatural briskness. "If I were in a hurry," he thought crossly, "I’d cool my heels in each store for fifteen or twenty minutes. That’s always the way when you want to kill time." At length, when the hands of his watch had crept around to eleven, Barry squared his shoulders with a determined gesture, and, making his way swiftly through from Broadway to the Waldorf cab stand, procured a taxi which deposited him less than ten minutes later before a very imposing residence up in the seventies, facing the park.