e
more than she would gain. And yet the sudden glimpse of passion in
Jonah had whetted her appetite for more. It had recalled the days of
her engagement with a singular bitterness and pleasure. She thought
with a hateful persistence of her first love, the man who had
accustomed her to admiration and then shuffled out of the engagement,
forced by the attitude of his relatives to her father. But for weeks
after the scene at Cremorne Jonah had retired within himself terrified
lest he should alarm her and put an end to their outings. So far she
had timed their meetings for the daylight out of prudence, but, pricked
on by curiosity, she had begun to dally on the return journey, desiring
and fearing some token of his adoration.

Meanwhile Jonah swung like a pendulum between hope and despair. He
dimly suspected that a bolder man would have had his declaration out
and done with long ago, and he waited for a favourable opportunity; but
it came and went, and left him speechless. He had accepted Ada as the
typical woman, and now found himself as much at sea as if he had
discovered a new species, for he never suspected that any other woman
had it in her power, given a favourable opportunity, to lead him to
this new world of sensation. Women had always been shy of him, and
with his abnormal shape and his absorption in business it had been easy
for him to miss what lay beneath the surface. But for the accident of
his meeting with Clara, his temperament would have carried him through
life, unconscious of love from his own experience and regarding it as a
fable of women and poets.

Jonah never spent money willingly, except where Ray was concerned, and
Clara in their first meetings had been surprised and chilled by his
anxiety to get the value of his money. He had informed her, bluntly,
that money was not made by spending it; but for some months he had been
surprised by a desire to spend his money to adorn and beautify this
woman. Clara, however, maintaining her independence with a wary eye,
had refused to take presents from him. He had become more civilized
and more human under the weight of his generous emotions, but they
could find no outlet.

It was the affair of Hans Paasch that opened his eye to the power for
good that she exercised over him. When his shop had closed for want of
customers, Paasch found that his failing eyesight and methodical
slowness barred him from competing with younger and quicker men, and,
his