The momentary shock of which Gilead was conscious did not escape her observation. She laughed musically. “O!” she said; “it was only a try, but a pretty forlorn one. You are satisfied with virtue for its own sake, aren’t you? The worse for the girls, for you are a jolly good-looking fellow.” “Am I, my dear?” he said drily. He used the term without design. It was simply an involuntary expression of his estimate of her value, and she recognized it as such. “I’m not in the least offended,” she answered. “I meant to pay you back a trifle of what I owed you, that was all; and you’re quite right to refuse to compromise with a penny in the pound. What does it feel like to respect yourself? I wish you’d tell me.” “I don’t know that I can,” he said. “I can only answer in a negative way by thinking what I should feel like if I didn’t.” “Like what?” “Like you, perhaps.” “O!” she said, “you devil! But I don’t mind. It takes all sorts to make a world.” She settled herself comfortably, putting out her little feet and crossing her ankles. “Tell me,” she said, “what sort of a woman do you admire? That lady-clerk of yours?” “I will answer again,” said Gilead, “negatively. I don’t admire you.” “Why not? I’m pretty.” Gilead shrugged his shoulders. “O!” she said, “I’ve mental gifts too--don’t you ever doubt it”--and then she added, seemingly irrelevantly: “I hate that lady-clerk.” Gilead saw that he had to conciliate a perversity, and he lent himself to the task with all the humour and tact of which he was capable. One could regard life from Flushing, he perceived, with as much worldly acumen as from London. He talked and talked about momentous nothings, until he had won her to a train of interests outside their individual selves; nevertheless he felt curiously abashed and humiliated all the time. He shied instinctively from any allusion to her story, or comment on her proposed future proceedings; and he welcomed the lights of Victoria Station, when at length they ran into them, with a sigh of most heartfelt relief. He was a moment or two in following her out of the carriage--and then he perceived that she was standing impassively in the custody of a couple of plain-clothes constables, one of whom was known to him. “Nicked,” she said, “and no mistake. I wonder if that lady-clerk of yours had a hand in this.” “It’s all right, Mr Balm,” said the detective--he held the red morocco bag secure in his hand--“you didn’t know what you were doing, sir, but we’re obliged to you none the less. We guessed you would return by this train, and we’ve been looking out for you.” “What’s in the bag?” said Gilead, recovering himself with a gasp. “Why,” said the detective, “that’s it. Just the proceeds, sir, of the great jewellery robbery from Kruier’s shop in Brussels. We’d been wondering where they’d gone; and now we know. Come along, Miss Topsy. We’ll let you hear further about it by and by, Mr Balm.” She turned, and blew a kiss over her shoulder to Gilead.