quently, as Mrs. Crowley
handed her a cap of tea. 'Of course it's in the family.'

'Marvellous family!' said Dick, ironically. 'You would be wiser to wish
he had a good head for figures.'

'But I hope he has that, too,' she answered.

It had been arranged that George should go into the business in which
Lady Kelsey still had a large interest. Lucy wanted him to make great
sums of money, so that he might pay his father's debts, and perhaps buy
back the house which her family had owned so long.

'I want him to be a clever man of business--since business is the only
thing open to him now--and an excellent sportsman.'

She was too shy to describe her ambition, but her fancy had already cast
a glow over the calling which George was to adopt. There was in the
family an innate tendency toward the more exquisite things of life, and
this would colour his career. She hoped he would become a merchant
prince after the pattern of those Florentines who have left an ideal for
succeeding ages of the way in which commerce may be ennobled by a
liberal view of life. Like them he could drive hard bargains and amass
riches--she recognised that riches now were the surest means of
power--but like them also he could love music and art and literature,
cherishing the things of the soul with a careful taste, and at the same
time excel in all sports of the field. Life then would be as full as a
man's heart could wish; and this intermingling of interests might so
colour it that he would lead the whole with a certain beauty and
grandeur.

'I wish I were a man,' she cried, with a bright smile. 'It's so hard
that I can do nothing but sit at home and spur others on. I want to do
things myself.'

Mrs. Crowley leaned back in her chair. She gave her skirt a little twist
so that the line of her form should be more graceful.

'I'm so glad I'm a woman,' she murmured. 'I want none of the privileges
of the sex which I'm delighted to call stronger. I want men to be noble
and heroic and self-sacrificing; then they can protect me from a
troublesome world, and look after me, and wait upon me. I'm an
irresponsible creature with whom they can never be annoyed however
exacting I am--it's only pretty thoughtlessness on my part--and they
must never lose their tempers however I annoy--it's only nerves. Oh, no,
I like to be a poor, weak woman.'

'You're a monster of cynicism,' cried Dick. 'You use an imaginary
helplessness with the brutality of a buccaneer, an