"Look here, my boy!" said Selwyn coolly, crossing one knee over the other and dropping both hands into the pockets of his pajamas--"I asked you to come to me, didn't I? Well, then; don't criticise my judgment in doing it. It isn't likely I'd ask you to do a cowardly thing." "You don't understand what a wretched scrape I'm in--" "I don't yet; but you're going to tell me--" "Philip, I can't--I simply cannot. It's so contemptible--and you warned me--and I owe you already so much--" "You owe me a little money," observed Selwyn with a careless smile, "and you've a lifetime to pay it in. What is the trouble now; do you need more? I haven't an awful lot, old fellow--worse luck!--but what I have is at your call--as you know perfectly well. Is that all that is worrying you?" "No--not all. I--Neergard has lent me money--done things--placed me under obligations. . . . I liked him, you know; I trusted him. . . . People he desired to know I made him known to. He was a--a trifle peremptory at times--as though my obligations to him left me no choice but to take him to such people as he desired to meet. . . . We--we had trouble--recently." "What sort?" "Personal. I felt--began to feel--the pressure on me. There was, at moments, something almost of menace in his requests and suggestions--an importunity I did not exactly understand. . . . And then he said something to me--" "Go on; what?" "He'd been hinting at it before; and even when I found him jolliest and most amusing and companionable I never thought of him as a--a social possibility--I mean among those who really count--like my own people--" "Oh! he asked you to introduce him into your own family circle?" "Yes--I didn't understand it at first--until somehow I began to feel the pressure of it--the vague but constant importunity. . . . He was a good fellow--at least I thought so; I hated to hurt him--to assume any attitude that might wound him. But, good heavens!--he couldn't seem to understand that nobody in our family would receive him--although he had a certain footing with the Fanes and Harmons and a few others--like the Siowitha people--or at least the men of those families. Don't you see, Philip?" "Yes, my boy, I see. Go on! When did he ask to be presented to--your sister?" "W-who told you that?" asked the boy with an angry flush. "You did--almost. You were going to, anyway. So that was it, was it? That was when you realised a few things--understood one or two things; was it not? . . . And how did you reply? Arrogantly, I suppose." "Yes." "With--a--some little show of--a--contempt?" "Yes, I suppose so." "Exactly. And Neergard--was put out--slightly?" "Yes," said the boy, losing some of his colour. "I--a moment afterward I was sorry I had spoken so plainly; but I need not have been. . . . He was very ugly about it." "Threats of calling loans?" asked Selwyn, smiling.