"But come away out and I will talk to you," Vincent said, just as if they were in a mysteriously sacred shrine, where the discussion of business affairs was a sort of profanation. Or perhaps he resented the intrusion of the amiable but gin-odorous Hobson? At all events, he did not resume the conversation until they were both downstairs again in the parlour. "You understand, then," he said, and there was no more timidity about his speech now, "I am willing to get a number of things for the room, and to make you and Mrs. Hobson a present of them, on the distinct condition that Miss Bethune is kept in absolute ignorance how they came there. One word to her—and out they come again, every rag and stick. Why, you can easily invent excuses! You can tell them you took the opportunity of their absence to brighten up the place a bit. It is in your own interest to keep the rooms smart: it doesn’t imply any favour conferred on your lodgers. Don’t you see?" "Yes, sir. Very kind of you, sir, indeed," said Hobson, who seemed a little confused. "And what did you want me to do?" "Do? I want you to do nothing: and I want you to say nothing. Don’t you understand? I am going to send in a few things to smarten up that room; and they are yours so long as not any one of you hints to Miss Bethune where they came from. Isn’t that simple enough?" But far less simple was his own part in this transaction, as he was speedily to discover. For when he went outside again, and made away towards Regent-street, thinking he would go to a famous shop there, and buy all sorts of pretty things, it gradually dawned on him that he had undertaken a task entirely beyond his knowledge. For example, he could purchase any quantity of crimson satin; but how or where was he going to get it made up into a coverlet, or counterpane, or quilt, or whatever the thing was called? Then supposing he had the mirror and the lace, who was going to put the lace round the top of the mirror?—he could not do that for himself. A little set of ornamental book-shelves he could buy, certainly; but how was he going to ask for the bows of ribbon, or the silk drapery, or whatever it was that ought to adorn the brass rods at the head of the bed? The more he considered the matter the more clearly he saw that he must consult a woman, and the only woman he could consult in confidence was his aunt, Mrs. Ellison, who had now returned to Brighton. And perhaps he strove to conceal from himself what it was that so easily and naturally drew his thoughts to Brighton; perhaps he was hardly himself aware how this secret hunger of the soul was minute by minute and hour by hour increasing in its demands. Maisrie had not been so long away; but already he felt that one brief glimpse of her, no matter at what distance, would be a priceless thing. And then again it would not be breaking any compact. He would not seek to go near her, if there was this understanding that these two were for the present