"I most certainly have not.
My family keep darn close tab on what I spend.
Just because I have a little leeway I have to be extra careful not to abuse it."
He raised the blind and let in a further flood of sunshine.
"I'm no prig, Lord knows," he went on deliberately.
"I like pleasure --and I like a lot of it on a vacation like this, but you're --you're in awful shape.
I never heard you talk just this way before.
You seem to be sort of bankrupt --morally as well as financially."
"Don't they usually go together?"
Dean shook his head impatiently.
"There's a regular aura about you that I don't understand.
It's a sort of evil."
"It's an air of worry and poverty and sleepless nights," said Gordon, rather defiantly.
"I don't know."
"Oh, I admit I'm depressing.
I depress myself.
But, my God, Phil, a week's rest and a new suit and some ready money and I'd be like --like I was.
Phil, I can draw like a streak, and you know it.
But half the time I haven't had the money to buy decent drawing materials --and I can't draw when I'm tired and discouraged and all in.
With a little ready money I can take a few weeks off and get started."
"How do I know you wouldn't use it on some other woman?"
"Why rub it in?" said Gordon quietly.
"I'm not rubbing it in.
I hate to see you this way."
"Will you lend me the money, Phil?"
"I can't decide right off.
That's a lot of money and it'll be darn inconvenient for me."
"It'll be hell for me if you can't --I know I'm whining, and it's all my own fault but --that doesn't change it."
"When could you pay it back?"
This was encouraging.
Gordon considered.
It was probably wisest to be frank.
"Of course, I could promise to send it back next month, but --I'd better say three months.
Just as soon as I start to sell drawings."
"How do I know you'll sell any drawings?"
A new hardness in Dean's voice sent a faint chill of doubt over Gordon.
Was it possible that he wouldn't get the money?
"I supposed you had a little confidence in me."
"I did have --but when I see you like this I begin to wonder."
"Do you suppose if I wasn't at the end of my rope I'd come to you like this?
Do you think I'm enjoying it?"
He broke off and bit his lip, feeling that he had better subdue the rising anger in his voice.
After all, he was the suppliant.
"You seem to manage it pretty easily," said Dean angrily.
"You put me in the position where, if I don't lend it to you, I'm a sucker --oh, yes, you do.
And let me tell you it's no easy thing for me to get hold of three hundred dollars.
My income isn't so big but that a slice like that won't play the deuce with it."
He left his chair and began to dress, choosing his clothes carefully.
Gordon stretched out his arms and clenched the edges of the bed, fighting back a desire to cry out.
His head was splitting and whirring, his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever in his blood resolving itself into innumerable regular counts like a slow dripping from a roof.