"Not suited me--bosh! Any woman with fifty thousand pounds would have suited me. However, you're right--there's no good in talking of _that_. I'm booked. Poor little woman, she's a good wife to me; but it's rather a pity. You don't know how many chances I might have had but for that entanglement." "I wish, Austin, for your poor wife's sake, you'd let me tell my husband who you are. This concealment seems so hard upon her, as well as a kind of wrong to Daniel. I can do so little to serve her, and I might do so much, if I could own her as my sister-in-law. I don't think Daniel could help liking you, if he knew everything." "Drop that, if you please, Clarissa," said Austin, with a darkening countenance. "I have told you that your husband and I can never be friends, and I mean it. I don't want to be degraded by any intercession of yours. _That's_ a little too much even for me. It suits my purpose well enough to accept Mr. Granger's commissions; and of course it's very agreeable to see you; but the matter must end there." Miss Granger returned at this moment; but had she stayed away for an hour, Clarissa could scarcely have pressed the question farther. In the old days when they had been boy and girl together, Austin seven years her senior, Clarissa had always been just a little afraid of her brother; and she was afraid of him now. The very fact of his somewhat dependent position made her more fearful of offending him. She was anxious about his future; anxious too about his present mode of life; but she dared not question closely upon either subject. Once, when she had ventured to ask him about his plan of life, he answered in his careless off-hand way,-- "My dearest Clary, I have no plans. I like Paris; and if I am not particularly successful here, I don't suppose I should be more successful anywhere else. I mean to stay here as long as I can hold out. I know a good many people, and sometimes get a stroke of luck." "But you are ruining your health. Austin, I fear, with--late hours, and--and--parties." "Who told you I keep late hours? The Parisians, as a rule, don't go to bed at curfew. I don't suppose I'm worse than my neighbours. If I didn't go out, Clary, and keep myself in the minds of my patrons, I might rot in a garret. You don't know how soon a man is forgotten--even a man who has made his mark more positively than I have; and then you see, my dear, I like society, and have no taste for the domestic hearth, except for variety, once in a way, like dining on a bouillon after a week's high feeding. Yes, come what may, I shall stay in Paris--as long as I can." There was something in the tone of the last words that alarmed Clarissa. "You--you--are not in debt, are you, Austin?" she asked timidly. "No--no--I'm not in debt; but I owe a good deal of money." Clarissa looked puzzled.