"The idea!" he exclaimed; "the very idea of your earning money with these hands, these little hands," he repeated, "for me! Why, if only you would give me your hand in marriage, I should be more than repaid for all and everything?" He spoke eagerly. "Bernard, I shall not marry you until I have done all that I possibly can to pay the debt." In vain the young man protested, pleaded, and expostulated. Doris was firm: the utmost that she would concede was that he might visit her occasionally and see how she was getting on. When that matter was quite settled she gave him some tea, and then explained to him about her work, which he was astonished to find so remunerative. He did not think it wrong of her to make those poor imitation oil-paintings. He said that people could not expect to obtain real oil-paintings for such small sums. "You do not call them oil-paintings," he said, "you call them pictures; and if people think them oil-paintings that is their fault: it is because they are ignorant that they make the mistake. You are not answerable for that. The case of margarine and butter is different. It was because margarine used to be called butter that it was made illegal to sell it as such. Margarine is still sold, but it is called margarine." "How very sensible you are, Bernard!" said Doris. "I wish----" "What do you wish?" he asked earnestly, for he longed to serve her. "I wish you would convince the artist, my friend Alice’s brother, that he is wrong in thinking it so wicked to make those pictures and sell them." "Does it matter what he thinks?" asked Bernard, full of a new alarm. "Is the man anything to you, Doris?" "Anything to me? No, I have only seen him once." "Yet you would like to stand high in his opinion?" "Well, yes. There is something grand--heroic, about him. He would die for the truth. The man is made of the sort of stuff of which the old martyrs used to be made." Doris spoke with great enthusiasm. Bernard’s alarm increased by leaps and bounds. "Oh, Doris, darling, don’t have anything to do with him!" he exclaimed passionately. "Why not?" She looked startled. The flush which had risen to her face as she spoke so earnestly of Sinclair deepened into a very warm colour. "Because I do not wish you to know him." "Why not?" she repeated. "My instinct tells me that he has impressed you strongly and that you think a great deal of him, and if you get to care for him, this hero whom you admire so much, you won’t care for your poor Bernard any more!" He ended in doleful tones. "You foolish boy!" Doris cried, with complete change of voice. "You know very well that although our engagement has been broken off and I have vowed that I will never, never marry you--that is, unless some of the debt is paid--I shall never love anybody in all the world as I love you," she ended with a little sob, and buried her face in her hands, lest he should see the tears which filled her eyes.