you for it. But it makes me sick to think that someone has perhaps been working on your sympathies. Perhaps trying to get money out of you that he'll never pay back. Upon my soul, I'm afraid to lend it to you for fear you've got some quixotic idea in your head about helping someone who isn't worth it."
"But he is!" burst out Finch.
"There, you admit it! It is for someone else."
"I'm borrowing it to please myself, but I admit I'm going to help someone—with some of it."
"Not all of it?"
Finch said hotly: "Very well, don't lend it to me!"
"Finch, you're angry with me. But I'm not going to get angry with you. It would be too unreal." Leigh's voice shook. "I'll lend you the money. For heaven's sake get some security, if you can, from this friend of yours!"
"I can't take it when you feel like this about it, Arthur."
"But you must. You know that all that's troubling me is the fear that you'll lose it."
"You don't give me credit for any common sense, then!"
"I know that your generosity is greater than your common sense. I'm terribly afraid that if you start off like this—lending your money before you're in possession of it—you're going to be an easy mark for unscrupulous people."
It was easy to lie in the rose-and-ivory drawing-room, but how difficult up in Leigh's study, among his intimate things, and with his clear eyes full of trouble for one's sake.
"Arthur," he said, "I can't take it without telling you who it's for, now that you've put things as you have. It's for Eden."
"Aha, one of the family!"
"Yes, but he didn't ask me for it! I offered it. He's been ill, you know, and he wants to go to the South of France for the winter for his health. And it isn't only that. He has it in his mind to write something perfectly
