I nodded.
He writhed in his chair. "The straight truth is, I was
ashamed," he said. "I was trying to dodge you. I've
been playing fast and loose with you, Loudon; I've
deceived you from the first, I blush to own it. And
here you came home and put the very question I was
fearing. Why did we bust so soon? Your keen business
eye had not deceived you. That's the point, that's my
shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when Mamie
was treating you so, and my conscience was telling me
all the time, "Thou art the man.""
"What was it, Jim?" I asked.
"What I had been at all the time, Loudon," he wailed;
"and I don't know how I'm to look you in the face and
say it, after my duplicity. It was stocks," he added
in a whisper.
"And you were afraid to tell me that!" I cried. "You
poor, old, cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what
you did or didn't? Can't you see we're doomed? And
anyway, that's not my point. It's how I stand that I
want to know. There is a particular reason. Am I
clear? Have I a certificate, or what have I to do to
get one? And when will it be dated? You can't think
what hangs by it!"
"That's the worst of all," said Jim, like a man in a
dream; "I can't see how to tell him!"
"What do you mean?" I cried, a small pang of terror at
my heart.
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