“I know that you are my friend.”

“And will you not credit me when I tell you this?  What do you fear, that you should run away?  You have no wife;—­no children.  What is the coming misfortune that you dread?” She paused a moment as though for an answer, and he felt that now had come the time in which it would be well that he should tell her of his engagement with his own Mary.  She had received him very playfully; but now within the last few minutes there had come upon her a seriousness of gesture, and almost a solemnity of tone, which made him conscious that he should in no way trifle with her.  She was so earnest in her friendship that he owed it to her to tell her everything.  But before he could think of the words in which his tale should be told, she had gone on with her quick questions.  “Is it solely about money that you fear?” she said.

“It is simply that I have no income on which to live.”

“Have I not offered you money?”

“But, Madame Goesler, you who offer it would yourself despise me if I took it.”

“No;—­I do deny it.”  As she said this,—­not loudly but with much emphasis,—­she came and stood before him where he was sitting.  And as he looked at her he could perceive that there was a strength about her of which he had not been aware.  She was stronger, larger, more robust physically than he had hitherto conceived.  “I do deny it,” she said.  “Money is neither god nor devil, that it should make one noble and another vile.  It is an accident, and, if honestly possessed, may pass from you to me, or from me to you, without a stain.  You may take my dinner from me if I give it you, my flowers, my friendship, my,—­my,—­my everything, but my money!  Explain to me the cause of the phenomenon.  If I give to you a thousand pounds, now this moment, and you take it, you are base;—­but if I leave it you in my will,—­and die,—­you take it, and are not base.  Explain to me the cause of that.”

“You have not said it quite all,” said Phineas hoarsely.

“What have I left unsaid?  If I have left anything unsaid, do you say the rest.”

“It is because you are a woman, and young, and beautiful, that no man may take wealth from your hands.”

“Oh, it is that!”

“It is that partly,”

“If I were a man you might take it, though I were young and beautiful as the morning?”

“No;—­presents of money are always bad.  They stain and load the spirit, and break the heart.”

“And specially when given by a woman’s hand?”

“It seems so to me.  But I cannot argue of it.  Do not let us talk of it any more.”

“Nor can I argue.  I cannot argue, but I can be generous,—­very generous.  I can deny myself for my friend,—­can even lower myself in my own esteem for my friend.  I can do more than a man can do for a friend.  You will not take money from my hand?”

“No, Madame Goesler;—­I cannot do that.”