Girard gave him a quick glance—with the instant penetration of a man who has known hard times himself, he detected the signs of it in another; the perception lent a sort of under-warmth and kindness to his voice as he asked: “How are things going with you?” “Fine,” said Justin in a conventionally prosperous tone, with a sudden sight of a bottomless pit yawning below him. “I’ve had a few things on my mind lately—but they’re all right now. By the way, how do you like it at the Snows’?” “Oh, fairly well.” Girard’s gray eyes twinkled in an irrepressible smile. “I score high at present. They all approve of me, and I am told that I am the only man who has never run into the Boston fern or got tangled in the Wandering Jew. Miss Bertha and I have long talks together—she’s great. As for Mrs. Snow—she heard Sutton speak of her the other night to Ada as ‘the old lady.’ I assure you that since—” He shook his head, and both men laughed. “Come to see us. Miss Linden is back with us again,” said Justin hospitably, indescribably cheered by some soul-offered sympathy that lay below the trivial converse. “Thank you,” said Girard, an indefinable stiffening change coming over him momentarily, to disappear at once, however, as he went on: “By the way, I mustn’t forget what I came for before I hurry off.” He took some bills out of his long, flat leather wallet as he rose. “Do you remember lending that fifty dollars to my friend Keston last year? He turned up yesterday, and asked me to see that you got this.” “I’d forgotten all about it,” averred Justin. He had not realized until he took the bills that he had been keeping up all day by main strength, with that caved-in sensation of there being nothing back of it—nothing back of it. There are times when the touch of money is as the elixir of life. Justin, holding on by the skin of his teeth for ten thousand dollars, and needing imperatively at least as much more, felt that with this paltry fifty dollars it was suddenly possible to draw a free breath, felt a sheer, uncalculating lightness of spirit that showed how terrible was the persistent weight under which he was living. The very feeling of those separate bills in his pocket made him calmly sanguine. He got ready to go home a little earlier than usual, saying lightly to Harker, who had come in for his signature to some papers: “Those payments will begin to straggle in next week. Coneways’ isn’t due until the 31st—the very last minute! But he’s always prompt, thank Heaven—what are you doing?” “Knocking on wood,” said Harker, with a grim smile. “Oh, knock on wood all you want to,” returned Justin. He even thought of Lois on his way, and stopped to buy her some flowers. It was the first time he had thought of her unconsciously for a week. While he was waiting for a car to pass before he crossed the street, his eye caught the headline on a paper a newsboy was holding out to him: