She retired that night still with the sense of miracle; yet infinitely grateful to her father for his charming concession to her whim. And her first subtle move had been crowned with success! At least there was work where work was needed so sorely; work, too, that brought her so near to him, annihilating a distance she had reconciled herself to think of as impassable, and opening up potentialities of service which her fertile wits would not be slow to seize upon. Would it not be a joy to help him to a firm footing again, to raise this gifted life of which she had watched the long slow sinking! It was miraculous that this privilege should fall to her! But everything must appear to flow naturally to him of itself; he should never suspect that the unseen hand at work was hers, any more than he should ever know that this was what she, who loved him, had for years worked out in fancy. And she!--she should have no thought but the unselfish desire of serving him! What matter if she carried in her heart the cold conviction that he could never love her--since all she had dared aspire to had fallen to her lot! For who was she to cherish vain hopes? She had not the commonest touch of beauty; she was hopelessly out of his sphere. She felt herself appallingly ignorant and inexperienced. In her easy shelter the years had slipped by in monotonous quiet. In the world outside there beat a life that was strenuous, entrancing, dramatic--the struggle of the realm of affairs, the pomp and colour of courts and society, the important events of politics, the field of view that opened in the novels, or lay spread behind the footlights of the theatres. Wyndham belonged to all this brilliant universe, had walked with firm tread amid it all, breathing its airs with an assurance born of right and nature. No poverty could destroy his inalienable privileges, could render him less by a hair's breadth; indeed, save for the manifest inconveniences of the former, poverty or riches seemed irrelevant on that plane of high humanity; where differences of fortune were obscured by the highness of the humanity, however fertile in distinctions these differences might be in a lower world. But as the acquaintance ripened, as she tasted of the gracious intimacy of the long sittings, his perfect kindness, his chivalry, his constant solicitude began to undermine the attitude with which she had embarked on the adventure. They had become such good friends, and she could not blind herself to the fact that he was pressing his personality on her beyond what mere courtesy and friendliness demanded. But she still fought to stand firm, and her humility was her strength. It was even more than her strength--it read for her his doubts and hesitations.