“Yes--I know. I can imagine what you must have felt. And then it was so unlucky that it should have happened just now.” Mrs. Peyton shot a reconnoitring glance at her profile. “His dying, you mean, on the eve of success?” Miss Verney turned a frank smile upon her. “One ought to feel that, of course--but I’m afraid I am very selfish where my friends are concerned, and I was thinking of Mr. Peyton’s having to give up his work at such a critical moment.” She spoke without a note of deprecation: there was a pagan freshness in her opportunism. Mrs. Peyton was silent, and the girl continued after a pause: “I suppose now it will be almost impossible for him to finish his drawings in time. It’s a pity he hadn’t worked out the whole scheme a little sooner. Then the details would have come of themselves.” Mrs. Peyton felt a contempt strangely mingled with exultation. If only the girl would talk in that way to Dick! “He has hardly had time to think of himself lately,” she said, trying to keep the coldness out of her voice. “No, of course not,” Miss Verney assented; “but isn’t that all the more reason for his friends to think of him? It was very dear of him to give up everything to nurse Mr. Darrow--but, after all, if a man is going to get on in his career there are times when he must think first of himself.” Mrs. Peyton paused, trying to choose her words with deliberation. It was quite clear now that Dick had not spoken, and she felt the responsibility that devolved upon her. “Getting on in a career--is that always the first thing to be considered?” she asked, letting her eyes rest musingly on the girl’s. The glance did not disconcert Miss Verney, who returned it with one of equal comprehensiveness. “Yes,” she said quickly, and with a slight blush. “With a temperament like Mr. Peyton’s I believe it is. Some people can pick themselves up after any number of bad falls: I am not sure that he could. I think discouragement would weaken instead of strengthening him.” Both women had forgotten external conditions in the quick reach for each other’s meanings. Mrs. Peyton flushed, her maternal pride in revolt; but the answer was checked on her lips by the sense of the girl’s unexpected insight. Here was some one who knew Dick as well as she did--should she say a partisan or an accomplice? A dim jealousy stirred beneath Mrs. Peyton’s other emotions: she was undergoing the agony which the mother feels at the first intrusion on her privilege of judging her child; and her voice had a flutter of resentment. “You must have a poor opinion of his character,” she said. Miss Verney did not remove her eyes, but her blush deepened beautifully. “I have, at any rate,” she Said, “a high one of his talent. I don’t suppose many men have an equal amount of moral and intellectual energy.” “And you would cultivate the one at the expense of the other?”