The idea of winning the suit did not enter his mind an instant; he did not even dream of fighting it.
For the moment it was like fire driving out fire.

He forgot the loss of his art, his mind filled only with the sense of the last disaster.

What could he do?
Twenty-five thousand dollars! It would ruin him.

A cry of exasperation, of rage at his own folly, escaped him.

"Ah, what a fool I've been!" For an hour he raged to and fro in the delightful sunlit room, pacing back and forth in its longest dimension between the bamboo tea-table and the low bookcase, a thousand different plans and projects coming and going in his head.