d. Our
friend here is the mother of Horace Lord and of Nancy. She ran away
from her first husband, and was divorced. Whether she really married
afterwards, I don't quite know; most likely not. At all events, she has
run through her money, and wants her son to set her up again.'

For a few seconds Mrs. Damerel bore the astonished gaze of her admirer,
then, her expression scarcely changing, she walked steadily to the door
and vanished. The silence was prolonged till broken by Beatrice's laugh.

'Has she been bamboozling you, old man? I didn't know what was going on.
You had bad luck with the daughter; shouldn't wonder if the mother would
suit you better, all said and done.'

Crewe seated himself and gave vent to his feelings in a phrase of pure
soliloquy: 'Well, I'm damned!'

'I cut in just at the right time, did I?--No malice. I've had my hit
back at her, and that's enough.'

As the man of business remained absorbed in his thoughts, Beatrice took
a chair. Presently he looked up at her, and said savagely:

'What the devil do you want?'

'Nothing.'

'Then take it and go.'

But Beatrice smiled, and kept her seat.

CHAPTER 5

Nancy stood before her husband with a substantial packet in brown paper.
It was after breakfast, at the moment of their parting.

'Here is something I want you to take, and look at, and speak about the
next time you come.'

'Ho, ho! I don't like the look of it.' He felt the packet. 'Several
quires of paper here.'

'Be off, or you'll miss the train.'

'Poor little girl! _Et tu_!'

He kissed her affectionately, and went his way. In the ordinary
course of things Nancy would not have seen him again for ten days or a
fortnight. She expected a letter very soon, but on the fourth evening
Tarrant's fingers tapped at the window-pane. In his hand was the brown
paper parcel, done up as when he received it.

Nancy searched his face, her own perturbed and pallid.

'How long have you been working at this?'

'Nearly a year. But not every day, of course. Sometimes for a week or
more I could get no time. You think it bad?'

'No,'--puff--'not in any sense'--puff--'bad. In one sense, it's good.
But'--puff--'that's a private sense; a domestic sense.'

'The question is, dear, can it be sold to a publisher.'

'The question is nothing of the kind. You mustn't even try to sell it to
a publisher.'

'Why not? You mean you would be ashamed if it came out. But I shouldn't
put my own name to i