A blush of surprise rose to Lily’s pale face, but before she could interrupt him he had continued eagerly: “Well, I’ll lend you the money to pay Trenor; and I won’t—I—see here, don’t take me up till I’ve finished. What I mean is, it’ll be a plain business arrangement, such as one man would make with another. Now, what have you got to say against that?” Lily’s blush deepened to a glow in which humiliation and gratitude were mingled; and both sentiments revealed themselves in the unexpected gentleness of her reply. “Only this: that it is exactly what Gus Trenor proposed; and that I can never again be sure of understanding the plainest business arrangement.” Then, realizing that this answer contained a germ of injustice, she added, even more kindly: “Not that I don’t appreciate your kindness—that I’m not grateful for it. But a business arrangement between us would in any case be impossible, because I shall have no security to give when my debt to Gus Trenor has been paid.” Rosedale received this statement in silence: he seemed to feel the note of finality in her voice, yet to be unable to accept it as closing the question between them. In the silence Lily had a clear perception of what was passing through his mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the inexorableness of her course—however little he penetrated its motive—she saw that it unmistakably tended to strengthen her hold over him. It was as though the sense in her of unexplained scruples and resistances had the same attraction as the delicacy of feature, the fastidiousness of manner, which gave her an external rarity, an air of being impossible to match. As he advanced in social experience this uniqueness had acquired a greater value for him, as though he were a collector who had learned to distinguish minor differences of design and quality in some long-coveted object. Lily, perceiving all this, understood that he would marry her at once, on the sole condition of a reconciliation with Mrs. Dorset; and the temptation was the less easy to put aside because, little by little, circumstances were breaking down her dislike for Rosedale. The dislike, indeed, still subsisted; but it was penetrated here and there by the perception of mitigating qualities in him: of a certain gross kindliness, a rather helpless fidelity of sentiment, which seemed to be struggling through the hard surface of his material ambitions. Reading his dismissal in her eyes, he held out his hand with a gesture which conveyed something of this inarticulate conflict. “If you’d only let me, I’d set you up over them all—I’d put you where you could wipe your feet on ’em!” he declared; and it touched her oddly to see that his new passion had not altered his old standard of values. * * * * *