"And you do like Mina?" "Well--yes; I do. If Mina and I were older and my means justified it, I would make her my wife to-morrow--I don't mind telling you so much. And if the man is after her, it is for the sake of her money, mind, not for herself. I'm sure of it. I can see." "I thought Collinson had plenty of money of his own." "So he has, I believe. But money never comes amiss to an extravagant and idle man; and I think that Mina's money makes her attraction in Collinson's eyes. I wish with all my heart she had never had it left her!" continued Dan, energetically. "What did Mina want with seven thousand pounds?" "I dare say you would not object to it, with herself." "I'd as soon not have it. I hope I shall make my way in my profession, and make it well, and I would as soon take Mina without money as with it. I'm sure her mother might have it and welcome, for me! She is always hankering after it." "How do you know she is?" "We do her business at old Belford's, and she gets talking about the money to him, making no scruple of openly wishing it was hers. She bothers Dr. Knox, who is Mina's trustee, to lend her some of it. As if Knox would!--she might just as well go and bother the moon. No! But for that confounded seven thousand pounds Collinson would let Mina alone." I shook my head. He could not know it. Mina was very pretty. Dan saw my incredulity. "I will tell you why I judge so," he resumed, dropping his voice to a lower key. "Unless I am very much mistaken, Collinson likes some one else--and that's Madame St. Vincent. Sam thinks so too." It was more than I thought. They were cool to one another. "But we have seen them when no one else was by," contended Dan: "when he and she were talking together alone. And I can tell you that there was an expression on his face, an anxiousness, an eagerness--I hardly know how to word it--that it never wore for Mina. Collinson's love is given to madame. Rely upon that." "Then why should he not declare it?" "Ah, I don't know. There may be various reasons. Her poverty perhaps--for she has nothing but the salary Lady Jenkins pays her. Or, he may not care to marry one who is only a companion: they say he is of good family himself. Another reason, and possibly the most weighty one, may be, that madame does not like him." "I don't think she does like him." "I am sure she does not. She gives him angry looks, and she turns away from him with ill-disguised coldness. And so, that's about how the state of affairs lies up there," concluded Dan, shaking hands with me as we reached the door of his lodgings. "Captain Collinson's love is given to Madame St. Vincent, on the one hand, and to Mina's money on the other; and I think he is in a pretty puzzle which of the two to choose. Good-night, Johnny Ludlow. Be sure to remember this is only between ourselves." II.