"Oh, yes, that's always easy. When the few bonds we have that are paying
any interest at all are only worth between fifty and eighty cents on the
dollar. We lose about half the bond every time we sell."
"What else can we do?"
"Oh, we'll sell something--as usual. We've got paper worth eighty
thousand dollars at par." Again he laughed unpleasantly. "Bring about
thirty thousand on the open market."
"I distrusted those ten per cent investments."
"The deuce you did!" he said. "You pretended you did, so you could claw
at me if they went to pieces, but you wanted to take a chance as much
as I did."
She was silent for a moment as if considering, then:
"Anthony," she cried suddenly, "two hundred a month is worse than
nothing. Let's sell all the bonds and put the thirty thousand dollars in
the bank--and if we lose the case we can live in Italy for three years,
and then just die." In her excitement as she talked she was aware of a
faint flush of sentiment, the first she had felt in many days.
"Three years," he said nervously, "three years! You're crazy. Mr.
Haight'll take more than that if we lose. Do you think he's working
for charity?"
"I forgot that.
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