There were no children, and for the past ten years the old Magnus
house on Twenty-third Street had been for her a kind of hermitage from
which she seldom issued. Great business blocks sprang up on either
side of it, but she would never permit her husband to sell it and move
farther uptown.
For Magnus, on the other hand, the house became in time merely a sort
of way station between the busy terminals of his life. I dare say he
grew indifferent to his wife. That however, has nothing to do with
this story.
Mrs. Magnus usually entered my office as one intrenched in conscious
strength, but this morning it was evident that something had occurred
to disturb her calm assurance. Her lips seemed more shrunken than
ever; there were little lines of worry about her eyes, and dark
circles under them, and as she dropped into the chair I placed for
her, I saw that her hands were trembling. As I sat down in my own
chair and swung around to face her, the conviction struck through me
that she was badly frightened.
"Mr. Lester," she began, after a moment in which she was visibly
struggling for self-control, "I want fifty thousand dollars in
currency."
"Why--why, of course," I stammered, trying to accept the demand as
quite an ordinary one. "When?"
"By eight o'clock to-night."
"Very well," I said. "But I suppose you know that, to secure the money
so quickly, some of your securities will have to be sacrificed. It's a
bear market."
"I don't care--sacrifice them.
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