"You will, will you? Jove! I almost believe you would. And you'd win your case too, for if you looked as belligerent as you do at present the jury would be afraid to give it against you. It isn't a bit of use, Jill, getting nasty; I'm in such an angelic frame of mind myself that not even you could put me out. Get your hat on, old girl, and let's go and look for our shop together. We are going to become public benefactors, and hand down to posterity the idealised representatives of the present generation." Jill smiled scornfully. "I am sorry for the idealisation if you are going to operate; they'll be more like caricatures I'm thinking. What do you know about photography?" "Know about it!" echoed St. John indignantly. "Why I've got a camera of my own; Evie and I used to dabble a good deal in photography at one time." "It strikes me that you _dabbled_ in a great many things," retorted Jill. "Perhaps that accounts for the very indifferent manner in which you do everything. If you are counting on your amateur efforts solely, I fear we shall end in the bankruptcy court." "Jill," he said very gravely, and in such an altered tone that Jill looked up in surprise, "are you afraid to throw in your lot with mine now that my circumstances are almost as destitute and uncertain as your own?" Jill gave a gasp. For a moment she looked as if about to offer an indignant protest, the next she dissolved into tears. St. John's half-formed suspicions faded immediately. His father had planted them in his mind the night before. He had said "tell her that you are penniless and see how sincere her love will prove." The girl's uncertain mood had recalled the words to his memory but he knew as soon as he had spoken by the look in her eyes that he had entirely misjudged her. "How can you say such unkind things?" she cried. "I believe you are trying to make me hate you." "Darling," he said contritely, slipping his arm about her, and holding her closely to him, "forgive me; I didn't mean it, indeed I didn't." "You did," sobbed Jill. "You thought that I had been running after you as a good speculation--" "Don't, dear," he entreated, "you make me feel so ashamed of myself." "And so you ought to," she answered, drying her eyes on the corner of her painting apron, and looking up at him with a very woebegone face. "I shall never forget that, I'm afraid; I have a horrid memory for cruel things, and I have loved you so truly all the time. I would go through a dozen bankruptcy courts with you, and--and--and end up in the work-house even sooner than lose you now." She dropped her head again with a fresh burst of tears, and St. John felt as intensely miserable as it is possible for a man to feel, intensely ashamed of himself also for giving voice to such an unjust suspicion. He racked his brains in search of something soothing, but the only thing he could find to say was,-- "Don't keep hitting a fellow when he's down, Jill."