On this occasion, however, Arthur had meant what he said. When the door
had closed behind the little fellow, he looked up to observe in the
most matter-of-fact tone,--
"I suppose it is only fair, Edith, that I should tell you that we are
ruined."
She looked at him with a puzzled face.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"I mean," he returned, "that I have been getting into no end of a mess,
and that some stock I bought to help myself out of it, has gone down
and made things ten times worse."
She folded her hands in her lap and regarded him wistfully. She had
been so often repressed when she had tried to gain his confidence in
regard to business matters that she hesitated to speak now.
"Should I understand if you told me about it?" she asked.
"Oh, very likely not," he returned, coolly; "but I don't in the least
mind telling you, if it's any satisfaction to you. It isn't any great
matter, only that I live so near the ragged edge that a dollar or two
either way makes all the difference between poverty and independence."
Edith breathed more freely. Her husband's self-possessed manner, and
the fact that she knew him to be so given to exaggeration, made her
feel that things were not so hopeless as his words had at first
implied.
"I have three thousand shares of Princeton Platinum stock," Fenton went
on, with the condescending air of one who elaborately explains details
which he knows will not be understood.
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