“The Endowment,” I permitted myself to observe, “is a conception superficially sublime, but fundamentally ridiculous.” “Are you repeating Mr. Gravener’s words?” Adelaide asked. “Possibly, though I’ve not seen him for months. It’s simply the way it strikes me too. It’s an old wife’s tale. Gravener made some reference to the legal aspect, but such an absurdly loose arrangement has _no_ legal aspect.” “Ruth doesn’t insist on that,” said Mrs. Mulville; “and it’s, for her, exactly this technical weakness that constitutes the force of the moral obligation.” “Are you repeating _her_ words?” I enquired. I forget what else Adelaide said, but she said she was magnificent. I thought of George Gravener confronted with such magnificence as that, and I asked what could have made two such persons ever suppose they understood each other. Mrs. Mulville assured me the girl loved him as such a woman could love and that she suffered as such a woman could suffer. Nevertheless she wanted to see _me_. At this I sprang up with a groan. “Oh I’m so sorry!—when?” Small though her sense of humour, I think Adelaide laughed at my sequence. We discussed the day, the nearest it would be convenient I should come out; but before she went I asked my visitor how long she had been acquainted with these prodigies. “For several weeks, but I was pledged to secrecy.” “And that’s why you didn’t write?” “I couldn’t very well tell you she was with me without telling you that no time had even yet been fixed for her marriage. And I couldn’t very well tell you as much as that without telling you what I knew of the reason of it. It was not till a day or two ago,” Mrs. Mulville went on, “that she asked me to ask you if you wouldn’t come and see her. Then at last she spoke of your knowing about the idea of the Endowment.” I turned this over. “Why on earth does she want to see me?” “To talk with you, naturally, about Mr. Saltram.” “As a subject for the prize?” This was hugely obvious, and I presently returned: “I think I’ll sail to-morrow for Australia.” “Well then—sail!” said Mrs. Mulville, getting up. But I frivolously, continued. “On Thursday at five, we said?” The appointment was made definite and I enquired how, all this time, the unconscious candidate had carried himself. “In perfection, really, by the happiest of chances: he has positively been a dear. And then, as to what we revere him for, in the most wonderful form. His very highest—pure celestial light. You _won’t_ do him an ill turn?” Adelaide pleaded at the door. “What danger can equal for him the danger to which he’s exposed from himself?” I asked. “Look out sharp, if he has lately been too prim. He’ll presently take a day off, treat us to some exhibition that will make an Endowment a scandal.” “A scandal?” Mrs. Mulville dolorously echoed. “Is Miss Anvoy prepared for that?” My visitor, for a moment, screwed her parasol into my carpet. “He grows bigger every day.”