THE TOUCHSTONE
"Say you hate me!" he persisted.
"That would have been so simple," she answered with a strange smile. She dropped into a chair near the writing-table and rested a bowed forehead on her hand.
"Was it much—?" she began at length.
"Much—?" he returned vaguely.
"The money."
"The money?" That part of it seemed to count so little that for a moment he did not follow her thought.
"It must be paid back," she insisted. "Can you do it?"
"Oh, yes," he returned listlessly. "I can do it."
"I would make any sacrifice for that!" she urged.
He nodded. "Of course." He sat staring at her in dry-eyed self-contempt. "Do you count on its making much difference?"
"Much difference?"
"In the way I feel—or you feel about me?"
She shook her head.
"It's the least part of it," he groaned.
"It's the only part we can repair."
[ 144 ]
