that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: "Why later
on? Tell me now. No time like the present."

"Shall I?"

"If it isn't a long story."

"Oh, not five minutes; but there's a sting at the end of it, for I want
you to find the man some work in your office."

"What are his qualifications?"

"I don't know. He's a clerk."

"How old?"

"Twenty-five, perhaps."

"What's his name?"

"Bast," said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had met
at Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a successful
meeting.

"Where was he before?"

"Dempster's Bank."

"Why did he leave?" he asked, still remembering nothing.

"They reduced their staff."

"All right; I'll see him."

It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now she
understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon,
when condemning suffragettes, had said: "The woman who can't influence
her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself."
Margaret had winced, but she was influencing Henry now, and though
pleased at her little victory, she knew that she had won it by the
methods of the harem.

"I should be glad if you took him," she said, "but I don't know whether
he's qualified."

"I'll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn't be taken as a
precedent."

"No, of course--of course--"

"I can't fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer."

"I can promise you he's the last. He--he's rather a special case."

"Proteges always are."

She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of
complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the gulf
between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And
she herself--hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as
they are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth--their
warfare seems eternal perhaps the whole visible world rests on it,
and if they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was
reconciled to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.

"Your protege has made us late," said he. "The Fussells--will just be
starting."

On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the Basts
as he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends were discussing
the ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash method, but the world has
been built slap-dash, and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset
may be but the varnish