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The girl nodded as she looked up into the man’s plain face, and a flash of thoughtful regret for its plainness broke in on all the rest that preoccupied her.

“I doubt if it’s even that, Ivor,” she said, a little desperately.

“How?”

The man’s interrogation was a return to his roughness of manner.

“Why, Bad Booker’s got us right in his clutches, and we can’t even wriggle. He reckons to hand Mum two thousand on top of his two thousand mortgage for a block of stuff you could market free for ten thousand. It’s his two thousand or—or starve.”

The girl finished up with a smile that failed to hide her feelings, and McLagan’s eyes hardened.

“The man’s a swine,” he said, and his voice grated harshly.

“That don’t help.”

“No. Don’t accept, Claire. Don’t you sell.”

“But we’ve got to eat.”

“Sure, an’ you’re going to. Here.” Just for a second the man hesitated, and shifted his gaze from the beautiful urgent face that never more deeply appealed to him than now. Then it came back on the instant. “It’s no use,” he cried, and his tone was rough. “You’re not going to starve. You and your mother can have all the cash you need till Jim comes, and—and I want nothing in return. Do you get my meaning, Claire? If you take money on loan from me till Jim gets home you’ll never have need to worry. You can just shut it right out of your head and forget it—till Jim comes home. I mean that just plain an’ straight. And there isn’t a thing behind it.”