A startled look had come upon Montague’s face as he listened.  “I don’t believe I ever thought of it myself!” he exclaimed.

And Bates shrugged his shoulders.  “You see!” he said.  “So it goes.”

CHAPTER XXIII

Montague had taken a couple of days to think over Lucy’s last request.  It was a difficult commission; but he made up his mind at last that he would make the attempt.  He went up to Ryder’s home and presented his card.

“Mr. Ryder is very much occupied, sir—­” began the butler, apologetically.

“This is important,” said Montague.  “Take him the card, please.”  He waited in the palatial entrance-hall, decorated with ceilings which had been imported intact from old Italian palaces.

At last the butler returned.  “Mr. Ryder says will you please see him upstairs, sir?”

Montague entered the elevator, and was taken to Ryder’s private apartments.  In the midst of the drawing-room was a great library table, covered with a mass of papers; and in a chair in front of it sat Ryder.

Montague had never seen such dreadful suffering upon a human countenance.  The exquisite man of fashion had grown old in a week.

“Mr. Ryder,” he began, when they were alone, “I received a letter from Mrs. Taylor, asking me to come to see you.”

“I know,” said Ryder.  “It was like her; and it is very good of you.”

“If there is any way that I can be of assistance,” the other began.

But Ryder shook his head.  “No,” he said; “there is nothing.”

“If I could give you my help in straightening out your own affairs—­”

“They are beyond all help,” said Ryder.  “I have nothing to begin on—­I have not a dollar in the world.”

“That is hardly possible,” objected Montague.

“It is literally true!” he exclaimed.  “I have tried every plan—­I have been over the thing and over it, until I am almost out of my mind.”  And he glanced about him at the confusion of papers, and leaned his forehead in his hands in despair.

“Perhaps if a fresh mind were to take it up,” suggested Montague.  “It is difficult to see how a man of your resources could be left without anything—­”

“Everything I have is mortgaged,” said the other.  “I have been borrowing money right and left.  I was counting on profits—­I was counting on increases in value.  And now see—­everything is wiped out!  There is not value enough left in anything to cover the loans.”

“But surely, Mr. Ryder, this slump is merely temporary.  Values must be restored—­”

“It will be years, it will be years!  And in the meantime I shall be forced to sell.  They have wiped me out—­they have destroyed me!  I have not even money to live on.”

Montague sat for a few moments in thought.  “Mrs. Taylor wrote me that Waterman—­” he began.

“I know, I know!” cried the other.  “He had to tell her something, to get what he wanted.”