'How can you say that!' cried Jennie reproachfully. 'I am asking for my own satisfaction entirely, and not for my paper. Besides, I tell you frankly what I want to know, and don't try to get it by indirect means--by false pretences, as you once said.' 'How can you expect me to give you information that does not belong to me alone? I have no right to speak of a business which concerns others without their permission.' 'Ah, then, there are at least two more concerned in the mine,' said Jennie gleefully. 'Kenyon is one, I know; who is the other?' 'Miss Brewster, I will tell you nothing.' 'But you have told me something already. Please go on and talk, Mr. Wentworth--about anything you like--and I shall soon find out all I want to know about the mine.' She paused, but Wentworth remained silent, which, indeed, the bewildered young man realized was the only safe thing to do. 'They speak of the talkativeness of women,' Miss Brewster went on, as if soliloquizing, 'but it is nothing to that of the men. Once set a man talking, and you learn everything he knows--besides ever so much more that he doesn't.' Miss Brewster had abandoned her very taking attitude, with its suggestion of confidential relations, and had removed her elbows from the table, sitting now back in her chair, gazing dreamily at the dingy window which let the light in from the dingy court. She seemed to have forgotten that Wentworth was there, and said, more to herself than to him: 'I wonder if Kenyon would tell me about the mine.' 'You might ask him.' 'No; it wouldn't do any good,' she continued, gently shaking her head. 'He's one of your silent men, and there are so few of them in this world. Perhaps I had better go to William Longworth himself; he's not suspicious of me.' As she said this, she threw a quick glance at Wentworth, and the unfortunate young man's face at once told her that she had hit the mark. She bent her head over the table, and laughed with such evident enjoyment that Wentworth, in spite of his helpless anger, smiled grimly. Jennie raised her head, but the sight of his perplexed countenance was too much for her, and it was some time before her merriment allowed her to speak. At last she said: 'Wouldn't you like to take me by the shoulders and put me out of the room, Mr. Wentworth?' 'I'd like to take you by the shoulders and shake you.' 'Ah! that would be taking a liberty, and could not be permitted. We must leave punishment to the law, you know, although I do think a man should be allowed to turn an objectionable visitor into the street.' 'Miss Brewster,' cried the young man earnestly, leaning over the table towards her, 'why don't you abandon your horrible inquisitorial profession, and put your undoubted talents to some other use?' 'What, for instance?' 'Oh, anything.'