He was afraid of appearing to parade his intentions before her, and altered the form of his announcement. ‘I have consulted with Sutcliffe, my manager, you know, and we have come to the conclusion that it will be the best and wisest plan for me to relieve my work-people myself, for the present at any rate, and----’ ‘All of them! To keep them, do you mean?’ asked Adrienne, quickly. ‘It is really the best, and it will be the cheapest way in the end,’ said he, half apologetically; ‘and what I wished to ask you was----’ ‘It is right--it is a generous thing to do. I am glad you are going to do it,’ she interrupted him, her eyes beaming, and suppressed warmth in her tone. And she looked at him more fully and steadily than she had done for many weeks past. Yet there was something not perfectly pleased in her expression. Sebastian, a young man who was not usually given to losing his self-possession or presence of mind, coloured, half with embarrassment, half with pleasure. ‘I am glad you approve,’ was all he could find to say. ‘I do. It will be such an excellent example.’ ‘An example--ah, yes! But now to ask my favour. Sutcliffe thinks it will not do to let them be idle all the time, so we have decided to open some schools--one for the men and boys, and another for the women and girls. Both of them will require some one with brains and a head on their shoulders to look after them. I want to know if you will take the management of the women’s school?’ ‘But Mrs. Mallory--will she not wish to----’ ‘No. She will have nothing to do with it beyond giving me a subscription. I believe she does not altogether approve of the course I have taken, and has decided to hold herself aloof. You can do it, if you will, and if Mr. Blisset will spare you. I know you are not afraid of yourself, and that is why I asked you.’ ‘If my uncle can spare me, I will undertake it,’ said Adrienne, speaking as she now usually did speak to him--rather briefly and drily. Sebastian could wring no sign from her--nothing but a rapid, guarded glance, and a brief, unemotional speech. It was unsatisfactory, he felt. He was not making way. She tormented his thoughts sometimes in a way that was harassing; he carried in his mind almost incessantly the calm, sweet face, pale and clear; the rapid glance which was, he felt, not so much destitute of expression as full of something veiled--something which she would not allow to beam fully out upon him. ‘It will not be play,’ he proceeded, after a silent pause, during which his eyes interrogated hers, which made no answer. ‘It will be downright hard, arduous work. If it should prove to be too much for you....’