"It was dear of you, Reginald," she said, "but do you know it's astonishing how well I seemed to be able to get on without those last three payments. I am earning quite a great deal of money of my own, you know, and I do wish you would let me try and be independent." His grey eyes were fixed almost coldly upon her. "Independent? Why?" "Oh, don't be foolish about it, please," she begged. "For nineteen years, I think it is now, you have allowed me six hundred a year. Do you realise what a great deal of money that is? Now that I am beginning to earn so much for myself, it is absurd for me to go on taking it." "Do I understand it to be your desire, then, Marcia," he asked, "to effect any change in our relations?" She came over and sat on the arm of his chair. "Not unless you wish it, dear," she replied, "only the money--well, in a sense I've got used to having it all these years, because it was necessary, but now that it isn't necessary, I can't help feeling that I should like to do without it. I earned nearly six hundred pounds, you know, last year, by my stories." The Marquis had half closed his eyes. He had become momentarily inattentive. Somehow or other, Marcia realised that her words had brought him acute suffering. There were tears in her eyes as she took his hand. "Don't be silly about this, Reginald dear," she pleaded. "If it means so much to you to feel--I mean, if you look upon this money as really a tie between us--give me a little less, then--say three hundred a year, instead of six." Her visitor was recovering his momentarily disturbed composure. "You are still nothing but a child in money matters, dear," he said. "We will speak of this again before the end of the year, but in the meantime, if you have anything to spare, invest it. It is always well for a woman to have something to fall back upon." Tea was brought in, and their conversation for a time became lighter in tone. Presently, however, Marcia became once more a little thoughtful. "I have made up my mind," she declared abruptly, "to go down to Mandeleys to see my father." The Marquis was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, why not, if you really feel it to be your duty," he conceded. "Personally, I think you will find that Vont is unchanged. You will find him just as hard and narrow as when he disowned you." "In that case," Marcia acknowledged, "I shall not trouble him very much, but when I think of all these years abroad--it was through me he left England, you know, Reginald--I feel that I ought to do my best, at any rate, to make him see things differently--to beg his forgiveness with my lips, even if I feel no remorse in my heart. I have a most uncomfortable conviction," she went on reflectively, "that I have grown completely out of his world, but, of course, in all this time he, too, may have changed. I wonder what has become of my little cousin."