"Oh, you don't need to look so frightened. It's a thing that happens to people," he joked. She murmured: "I'm so sorry," and her lips seemed shaping themselves for the expression of further sympathy. She leaned nearer again, and he saw she was feverishly wondering what she ought to say. Her helplessness touched him; in her place he would have known so well! She seemed a creature whose impulses of pity had become atrophied, and who was vainly trying to give him a sign of human feeling across the desert waste of her vast possessions. "I'm so sorry," she began again, in a whisper, as if her voice was unable to bridge the distance. Vance stood up and took a few steps across the room. If she was sorry, really—as sorry as all that… . He stopped in front of her, and began to speak in a low confused voice. "Fact is, I'm down and out—oh just temporarily, of course; I've had unexpected expenses… ." He paused, wondering desperately why he had ever begun. Mrs. Pulsifer sat before him without moving. Even her eyes were motionless, and her startled hands. He wondered if no one had ever spoken to her of such a thing as poverty. "Look here," he broke out, "if you really believe in me, will you lend me two thousand dollars?"

His question echoed through the room as if he had shouted it. A slight tremor passed over Mrs. Pulsifer's face; then her immobility became rigid. The situation clearly had no parallel in her experience, and she felt herself pitifully unequal to it. The fact exasperated Vance. It was all wrong that these people, the chosen custodians of knowledge and beauty, should be so stupid, so unfitted for their task. He hung before her irresolute, angry with himself and her. "I'd better go," he muttered at length.

She looked up, disconcerted. "Oh, no … please don't. I'm so sorry… ."

The meaningless repetition irritated him. "I don't suppose you ever before met a fellow who was dead broke, did you? I suppose that young man who opens the door has orders not to let them in," he jeered, flushed with his own humiliation.

She grew pale, and her hands moved uneasily. "I—oh, you don't understand; you don't. I try to … to live up to my responsibilities… . These things … I have advisers … a most efficient staff who deal with them… . Every case is—is conscientiously investigated." She seemed to be quoting a social service report.

"Oh, I'm not a case," Vance interrupted drily. "I thought you acted as if you wanted me for a friend—that's all."

"I did—I do. I only mean… ." She lifted horrified eyes to his. "You see, there's the prize… . If anyone knew that … that you'd come to me for assistance … that I… ."