"Sally," I asked seriously, "don't you understand that all this--everything I'm doing--is just for you and the boy?" "Is it, Ben?" she responded, and the next minute, "Of course, I understand it. How could I help it?" She was always reasonable--it was one of her greatest charms, and I knew that if I were to open my mind to her at the moment, she would enter into my troubles with all the insight of her resourceful sympathy. But I kept silence, restrained by some masculine instinct that prompted me to shut the business world outside the doors of home. "Well, I must go downtown, dear; I don't see much of you these days, do I?" "Not much, but I know you're here to stay and that's a good deal of comfort." "I'm glad you've got the baby. He keeps you company." She looked up at me with the puzzling expression, half humour, half resentment, I had seen frequently in her face of late. If she stopped to question whether I really imagined that a child of three months was all the companionship required by a woman of her years, she let no sign of it escape the smiling serenity of her lips. On her knees little Benjamin lay perfectly quiet while he stared straight up at the ceiling with his round blue eyes like the eyes of an animated doll. "Yes, he is company," she answered gently; and stooping to kiss them both, I ran downstairs, hurried into my overcoat, and went out into the street. As I closed the door behind me, I saw the General's buggy turning the corner, and a minute later he drew up under the young maples beside the pavement, and made room for me under the grey fur rug that covered his knees. "I don't like the way things are behaving in Wall Street, Ben," he said. "Did that last smash cost you anything?" "About two hundred thousand dollars, General, but I hadn't spoken of it." "I hope the bank hasn't been loaning any more money to the Cumberland and Tidewater. I meant to ask you about that several days ago." "The question comes up before the directors this afternoon. We'll probably refuse to advance any further loans, but they've already drawn on us pretty heavily, you understand, and we may have to go in deeper to save what we've got." "Well, it looks pretty shaky, that's all I've got to say. If Jenkins doesn't butt in and reorganise it, it will probably go into the hands of a receiver before the year is up. Is it the bank or your private investments you've been worrying over?" "My own affairs entirely. You see I'd dealt pretty largely through Cross and Hankins, and I don't know exactly what their failure will mean to me." "A good many men in the country are asking themselves that question. A smash like that isn't over in a day or a night. But I'm afraid you've been spending too much money, Ben. Is your wife extravagant?" "No, it's my own fault. I've never liked her to consider the value of money."