I'm afraid I damned the House of Commons: I was so much interested. Of course he would follow her as soon as he was free to make her his wife; only she mightn't now be able to bring him anything like the marriage-portion of which he had begun by having the pleasant confidence. Mrs. Mulville let me know what was already said: she was charming, this Miss Anvoy, but really these American girls! What was a man to do? Mr. Saltram, according to Mrs. Mulville, was of opinion that a man was never to suffer his relation to money to become a spiritual relation, but was to keep it wholesomely mechanical. "_Moi pas comprendre!_" I commented on this; in rejoinder to which Adelaide, with her beautiful sympathy, explained that she supposed he simply meant that the thing was to use it, don't you know! but not to think too much about it. "To take it, but not to thank you for it?" I still more profanely inquired. For a quarter of an hour afterwards she wouldn't look at me, but this didn't prevent my asking her what had been the result, that afternoon in the Regent's Park, of her taking our friend to see Miss Anvoy. "Oh, so charming!" she answered, brightening. "He said he recognised in her a nature he could absolutely trust." "Yes, but I'm speaking of the effect on herself." Mrs. Mulville was silent an instant. "It was everything one could wish." Something in her tone made me laugh. "Do you mean she gave him something?" "Well, since you ask me!" "Right there--on the spot?" Again poor Adelaide faltered. "It was to me of course she gave it." I stared; somehow I couldn't see the scene. "Do you mean a sum of money?" "It was very handsome." Now at last she met my eyes though I could see it was with an effort. "Thirty pounds." "Straight out of her pocket?" "Out of the drawer of a table at which she had been writing. She just slipped the folded notes into my hand. He wasn't looking; it was while he was going back to the carriage. Oh," said Adelaide reassuringly, "I dole it out!" The dear practical soul thought my agitation, for I confess I was agitated, had reference to the administration of the money. Her disclosure made me for a moment muse violently, and I daresay that during that moment I wondered if anything else in the world makes people as indelicate as unselfishness. I uttered, I suppose, some vague synthetic cry, for she went on as if she had had a glimpse of my inward amaze at such episodes. "I assure you, my dear friend, he was in one of his happy hours." But I wasn't thinking of that. "Truly, indeed, these American girls!" I said. "With her father in the very act, as it were, of cheating her betrothed!" Mrs. Mulville stared. "Oh, I suppose Mr. Anvoy has scarcely failed on purpose. Very likely they won't be able to keep it up, but there it was, and it was a very beautiful impulse." "You say Saltram was very fine?" "Beyond everything. He surprised even me."