Page:A fool in spots (IA foolinspots00riveiala).pdf/38

 "Great heavens, no. I would become a beggar first!"

"But if I insist, and it will save you and—him?"

Willard Frost sat for a time without speaking; apparently he was weighing some profound subject. At last he looked up and gathered Cherokee's hands in his.

"I appreciate the spirit that prompts you to make this heroic offer to me. When will you need this money?"

"Not for two months yet, I expect to spend the winter in 'Frisco' with Mr. and Mrs. Stanhope."

"Are you absolutely in earnest about our using it?"

"Never was more in earnest in my lifetime," she answered, solemnly.

"Then I will take it, though I feel humbled to the very dust to think of these little hands saving me."

He bent and kissed them as reverently as though she had been his patron saint. As she gave him the check for one thousand dollars, Cherokee thought his trembling hands told, but too well, of humbled pride.

"That was a stroke of genius—a decided stroke of genius," he said to himself, as he passed into the club house that day.