If he asked her, this woman would probably loan
him five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security!
"What security do you want?" he asked in a husky voice.
"Security? I don't understand about that," she replied. "I'd not offer
you the money if I didn't think you were an honest man, and an honest man
would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn't pay me back, security or no
security."
"He'd have to pay you back if the security was right to start with," Jean
Jacques insisted. "But you don't want security, because you think I'm an
honest man! Well, for sure you're right. I am honest. I never took a
cent that wasn't mine; but that's not everything. If you lend you ought
to have security. I've lost a good deal from not having enough security
at the start. You are willing to lend me money without security--that's
enough to make me feel thirty again, and I'm fifty--I'm fifty," he added,
as though with an attempt to show her that she could not think of him in
any emotional way; though the day when his flour-mill was burned he had
felt the touch of her fingers comforting and thrilling.
"You think Jean Jacques Barbille's word as good as his bond?" he
continued.
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