She was drawing figures aimlessly with the point of her sunshade in the gravel. For a moment or two she did not answer; then she broke out with an emphasis that was full of bitterness: ‘What would you have? What can you expect? From the day I left school, and even earlier than that, the one lesson that has been instilled into my mind is, that I must marry money—money. Even my mother—— But she is dead, and I will not speak of her. And since then, my aunt. I am a chattel—a piece of bric-à-brac in the matrimonial market, to be appraised, and depreciated, and finally knocked down to the first bidder who is prepared to make a handsome settlement. I hate myself when I think of it! I hate everybody!’ Sudden passionate tears sprang to her eyes; she dashed them away impatiently. ‘Not quite everybody, _ma belle_,’ said Mr Dulcimer as he possessed himself of one of her hands. ‘There is one way of escape that you wot of,’ he added in a lower voice. She turned on him with a flash: ‘By marrying you, I suppose?’ ‘Even so, _carissima_.’ ‘A government clerk on three hundred pounds a year.’ ‘With another hundred of private income in addition.’ ‘A truly munificent income on which to marry!’ she answered, not without a ring of scorn, real or assumed, in her voice as she withdrew her fingers from his grasp. ‘I think I know the kind of thing it implies. A stuffy little house in Camden Town or Peckham Rye—wherever those localities may be. Perhaps even furnished apartments. One small servant, not overclean. No opera, no brougham in the Park, no garden-parties, no carpet-dances, no more flirtations with nice young men. Locomotion by means of a twopenny ’bus or tram.; long, lonely days without a soul to talk to; now and then an order for the theatre; _au reste_, my husband’s buttons to sew on and his socks to keep in repair. Oh, I can guess it all!’ A tinge of colour had flickered into Dick’s cheeks while she was speaking, but it now died out again. He was quite aware that nothing would delight her more than to tease him till he should lose his temper; therefore, he answered as equably as before: ‘Evidently Lady Renshaw’s lessons have not been quite thrown away on you.’ One of her little feet began to tap the ground impatiently. ‘It seems to me, Mr Richard Dulcimer, that the best thing you can do is to take the next train back to town.’ ‘Shan’t do anything of the kind.’ ‘You are a very self-willed young man.’ To judge from her tone, she might have been twice his age. It is a way her sex sometimes have. ‘Obstinate as a mule,’ answered the philosophic Richard. ‘Suppose I tell you that I have had enough of your society? Suppose I order you to leave me here and at once?’ ‘Shan’t go.’ ‘Well, of all’—— She rose abruptly. ‘How much longer are you going to keep me here?’ she demanded in an injured tone, as though he were detaining her against her will. ‘Not one minute longer than you wish,’ he answered as he sprang to his feet. ‘Suppose we cross the stream.’