"Ah, do not decide so quickly," he pleaded. "I will not press you for an answer." "I would press you for an answer, if I could," replied Cecilia, "but I do not love you." "Why not?" he demanded desperately. "Because you are not what I should like you to be?" "And what would you like me to be?" he demanded eagerly. "If I told you, you would try to become it?" "I would," he said, enthusiastically. "Be it what it may, I would leave no stone unturned. I would work, strive, study, reform--anything, everything." "I feared so," she said despondently. "That is why I will not tell you. Don't you understand that your charm to me is your being just yourself--your simple, honest, manly self? I will not have my enjoyment of your individuality spoilt by your transmogrification into some unnatural product of the forcing house. No, Frank, let us be true to ourselves, not to each other. I shall always remain your friend, looking up to you as to something stanch, sturdy, stalwart, coming to consult you (unprofessionally) in all my difficulties. I will tell you all my secrets, Frank, so that you will know more of me than if I married you. Dear friend, let it remain as I say. It is for the best." So Frank went away broken-hearted, and joined the Mutual Depreciation Society. He did not care what became of him. How they came to let him in was this. He was the one man in the world outside who knew all about them, having been engaged as the Society's legal adviser. It was he who made their publishers and managers sit in an erect position. In applying for a more intimate connection, he stated that he had met with a misfortune, and a little monthly abuse would enliven him. The Society decided that, as he was already half one of themselves, and as he had never written a line in his life, and so could not diminish their takings, nothing but good could ensue from the infusion of new blood. In fact, they wanted it badly. Their mutual recriminations had degenerated into mere platitudes. With a new man to insult and be insulted by, something of the old animation would be restored to their proceedings. The wisdom of the policy was early seen, for the first fruit of it was the English Shakespeare, who for a whole year daily opened out new and exciting perspectives of sensation and amusement to a _blasé_ Society. Andrew Mackay had written an enthusiastic article in the so-called _Nineteenth Century_ on "The Cochin-China Shakespeare," and set all tongues wagging about the new literary phenomenon with whose verses the boatmen of the Irrawady rocked their children to sleep on the cradle of the river, and whose dramas were played in eight hours slices in the strolling-booths of Shanghai. Andrew had already arranged with Anyman to bring out a translation from the original Cochin-Chinese, for there was no language he could not translate from, provided it were sufficiently unknown.