supplicated heaven that he might meet eyes able to see the man beneath the ape. Such eyes, dimly penetrating with an unexpected vision, he had won to his side in the Benyon brothers; the rest of the world still stuck on the outside surface. But the brothers could only shield him, they could not change him; they might promote his fortunes, they could not cure his vices. He did not know that he had any vices; the first stage of amendment was still to come. He had a cousin in the City, a stock-jobber, who made and lost large sums of money as fortune smiled or frowned. Quisante had the first five hundred of Aunt Maria's thousand pounds in his pocket and told his kinsman to use it for him. "A spec?" asked Mr. Josiah Mandeville. "Isn't that rather rough on Aunt Maria?" Quisante looked surprised. "She gave it me, I haven't stolen it," he said with a laugh. "She gave it you to live on, to keep up your position, I suppose." "I don't think she made any conditions. And if I can make money, I'll give it back to her." "Oh, you know best, I suppose," said Mandeville. "Only if I lose it?" "Losing money's no worse than spending it." And then he mentioned a certain venture in which the money might usefully be employed. "How did you hear of that?" asked Mandeville with a stare; for his cousin had laid his finger on a secret, on the very secret which Mandeville had just decided not to reveal to him, kinsman though he was. "I forget; somebody said something about it that made me think it would be a good thing." Quisante's tone was vaguely puzzled; he often knew things when he could give no account of his knowledge. "Well, you aren't far wrong. You'll take a small profit, I suppose? Shall I use my discretion?" "No," smiled Quisante. "I shan't take a small profit, and I'll use mine. But keep me well informed and you shan't be a loser." Mr. Mandeville laughed. "One might think you had a million," he observed. "Or are you proposing to tip me a fiver?" The thought of his own thousands filled his tone with scorn; he did not do his speculating with Aunt Maria's money. "If you're too proud, I can take my business somewhere else--and the name of the concern too," said Quisante, lighting a cigar. Cousin Mandeville's stare had not escaped his notice. Mandeville hesitated; he was very much annoyed; he liked his money, if not himself, to be respected. But business is business, to say nothing of blood being thicker than water. "Oh, well, I'll do it for you," he agreed with lofty benevolence. Quisante laughed. He would have covered his own retreat with much the same device.