nothing more to
be said in the matter."

"I am satisfied and pleased. Why should I not be? I asked a friend to
let me do something to help him, and he answered me just in the spirit
in which I spoke. Of course I am glad to find that there is even one
man who could take a friendly offer in a friendly way. There are not
many such men, I suppose?"

Victor could not help smiling at her emphatic way of expressing her
scorn of men.

"I do believe you have really turned yourself misanthropical by reading
'Le Misanthrope,'" he said.

"Well, why should there not be a woman Alceste? although I never knew
any woman in real life more worthy to be classed with him than the men
we meet in real life are. Miss Alceste, I think, would sound very
prettily. I wish I could think myself entitled to bear such a name?"

"Or Miss Misanthrope," he suggested. "How would that do for a young
lady's name?"

"Admirably, I think. That would get over all the difficulty too, and
save foolish persons from thinking that one was setting up for another
Alceste. I should like very much to be called Miss Misanthrope."

"If you go on as you are doing, you will soon be entitled to bear the
name," said Victor gravely. "At the present moment I don't know that I
should much object to that."

"No! I am glad that anything I am likely to do has a chance of pleasing
you. But why should you not object just at present? Why not now as well
as at any other time?"

"Because I should like you to be a little misanthropical just now, and
a little distrustful--of men, that is to say, Miss Grey."

She colored slightly, although she had no idea of his meaning yet.

"I always thought you were full of trust in the whole human race, Mr.
Heron; I thought you liked everybody and believed in everybody. Now you
tell me to distrust all mankind."

"I didn't say that."

"No? Some particular person, then?"

"Some particular person, perhaps. At least I don't mean exactly that,"
Heron hastened to explain, his conscience smiting him at the thought
that perhaps after all he might be suggesting unjust suspicions of an
absent man who was a sort of friend. "I only mean that you are very
generous and unselfish, and that there might be persons who might try
to make use of your good nature, and whom perhaps you might not quite
understand. I don't know whether I ought to speak about this at all."

"Nor I, Mr. Heron, I am sure; for I really don't know what you are
speaking of or