‘It will not be too much for me,’ she said quickly, and then her eyes did suddenly fill with some expression--what he could not tell. ‘I want some work like that--work which will be hard and absorbing,’ said Adrienne, clasping her hands with an involuntary movement. ‘What must I do? Have you got a room for the school, and some teachers?’ ‘I think of dividing part of my warehouse, and filling it with benches. It can soon be done. As for teachers, I thought some of the better-educated amongst the young women themselves, or I could find a mistress, and--do you know Miss Spenceley?’ ‘No, I do not,’ said Adrienne, steadily, her colour rising. ‘She is a young lady who professes to need active work and to love it, and I really think, if she had the opportunity, she would throw herself heart and soul into such a scheme. But perhaps you would rather not make her acquaintance?’ Adrienne paused again. Was she to extend the scorn and contempt she felt for Frederick Spenceley to his whole connections, and to make difficulties and quibbles about her co-workers in a scheme in which it was essential chiefly to have workers as soon as possible? ‘No,’ said she; ‘if you think Miss Spenceley would help, I shall be very happy to work with her.’ ‘Of course you will be the head,’ said Sebastian. ‘I will take care that is understood, and then there will be no difficulty.’ ‘If you will send me a list of names and addresses,’ said Adrienne, ‘I will go myself and see after them. I dare say Mary Heywood could tell me something about a good many of them.’ ‘That reminds me that Myles Heywood, for some reason or other, has seen fit to decline all assistance. He has ordered his own name and his sister’s to be taken off my books, and withdraws in dignified silence.’ He looked intently at Adrienne as he spoke. She was silent, crimsoned for a moment as she met his glance; then she started from her chair and walked to the fireplace, stooped over the fire-irons, and began to mend the fire. ‘Allow me!’ said Sebastian, politely, coming to her assistance in time to see her disturbed face. ‘Is it not foolish of him?’ he added, remorselessly. ‘He is too young to have been able to save anything almost, and there is not the least prospect of work at present.’ ‘He was quite right,’ said Adrienne, clearly, as she fixed her eyes upon Sebastian. ‘Quite right?’ he echoed, holding the poker suspended in his hand, and looking at her in his turn. ‘Perfectly right. I am thankful to hear it. If he had stooped tamely to accept charity from you--I mean from any one--as soon as it was offered, I--I would never have forgiven him.’ Sebastian gently replaced the poker in the fender. ‘Perhaps he knew that,’ he remarked in his softest tone. ‘He could not,’ was Adrienne’s quick retort. ‘I have not spoken to him for weeks. And if I had--if he had known it....’