“I am sorry she is unhappy,” he said.  “I don’t know how much you know about it all; but since you know so much I assume you also know that I care for Carlotta just as much as she cares for me, possibly more.  I would marry her tomorrow if I could.”

“For the Lord Harry’s sake, do it then.  I’ll put up the money.”

Phil’s face hardened.

“That is precisely the rock that Carlotta and I split on, Mr. Cressy.  She wanted to have you put up the money.  I love Carlotta but I don’t love her enough to let her or you—­buy me.”

The old man and the young faced each other across the table.  There was a deadlock between them and both knew it.

“But this offer I’ve made you is a bona fide one.  You’ll make good.  You will be worth the five thousand and more in no time.  I know your kind.  I told you I was a good picker.  It isn’t a question of buying.  Can the movie stuff.  It’s a fair give and take.”

“I have refused your offer, Mr. Cressy.”

“You refused it before you knew Carlotta was eating her heart out for you.  Doesn’t that make any difference to you, my lad?  You said you loved her,” reproachfully.

A huge blue-bottle fly buzzed past the table, passed on to the window where it fluttered about aimlessly, bumping itself against the pane here and there.  Mechanically Phil watched its gyrations.  It was one of the hardest moments of his life.

“In one way it makes a great difference, Mr. Cressy,” he answered slowly.  “It breaks my heart to have her unhappy.  But it wouldn’t make her happy to have me do something I know isn’t right or fair or wise.  I know Carlotta.  Maybe I know her better than you do; I know she doesn’t want me that way.”

“But you can’t expect her to live in a hole like this, on a yearly income that is probably less than she spends in one month just for nothing much.”

“I don’t expect it,” explained Phil patiently.  “I’ve never blamed Carlotta for deciding against it.  But there is no use going over it all.  She and I had it out together.  It is our affair, not yours, Mr. Cressy.”

“Philip Lambert, did you ever see Carlotta cry?”

Phil winced.  The shot went home.

“No.  I’d hate to,” he admitted.

“You would,” seconded Harrison Cressy.  “I hated it like the devil myself.  She cried all over my new dress suit the other night.”

Phil’s heart was one gigantic ache.  The thought of Carlotta in tears was almost unbearable.  Carlotta—­his Carlotta—­was all sunshine and laughter.

“It was like this,” went on Carlotta’s parent.  “Her aunt told me she was going to marry young Lathrop—­old skin-flint tea-and-coffee Lathrop’s son.  I couldn’t quite stomach it.  The fellow’s an ass, an unobjectionable ass, it is true, but with all the ear marks.  I tackled Carlotta about it.  She said she wasn’t engaged but might be any minute.  I said some fool thing about wanting her to be happy, and the next thing