"How d'ye do, again? I sha'n't detain you a minute. I have had a long talk with your father about business," said Longcluse, seizing the topic most likely to secure a few minutes, and speaking very low. "You can bring me into a room here, and I'll tell you all that is necessary in two minutes." "Certainly," said Richard, yielding to his curiosity. "I have only two or three minutes. I dine here with a friend, who is at this moment ordering dinner; so, you see, I am rather hurried." He opened a door, and looking in said-- "Yes, we shall be quite to ourselves here." Longcluse shut the door. There was no one to overhear them. Richard Arden sat down on a sofa, and Mr. Longcluse threw himself into a chair. "And what did he say?" asked Richard. "They want to raise his interest on the Yorkshire estate; and he says you won't help him; but that of course is your affair, and I declined, point-blank, to intervene in it. And before I go further, it strikes me, as it did to-day at Mortlake, that your manner to me has undergone a slight change." "Has it? I did not mean it, I assure you," said Richard Arden, with a little laugh. "Oh! yes, Arden, it _has_, and you must know it, and--pardon me--you must _intend_ it also; and now I want to know what I have done, or how I have hurt you, or who has been telling lies of me?" "Nothing of all these, that I know of," said Richard, with a cold little laugh. "Well, of course, if you prefer it, you may decline an explanation. I must however, remind you, because it concerns my happiness, and possibly other interests dearer to me than my life, too nearly to be trifled with, that you heard all I said respecting your sister with the friendliest approbation and encouragement. You knew as much and as little about me then as you do now. I am not conscious of having said or done anything to warrant the slightest change in your feelings or opinion; and in your manner there _is_ a change, and a very decided change, and I tell you frankly I can't understand it." Thus directly challenged, Richard Arden looked at him hard for a moment. He was balancing in his mind whether he should evade or accept the crisis. He preferred the latter. "Well, I can only say I did not intend to convey anything by my manner; but, as you know, when there is anything in one's mind it is not always easy to prevent its affecting, as you say, one's manner. I am not sorry you have asked me, because I spoke without reflection the other day. No one should answer, I really think, for any one else, in ever so small a matter, in this world." "But you didn't--you spoke only for yourself. You simply promised me your friendship, your kind offices--you said, in fact, all I could have hoped for." "Yes, perhaps--yes, I may, I suppose I did. But don't you see, dear Longcluse, things may come to mind, on thinking over."