otives into his daughter's
ears!"

"Oh, please, go on: I want to hear!"

"It is nothing wrong. Only if a man wants to stand well with the
working-people--if he wants votes, for instance--it isn't at all a bad
move to begin with a Working-Men's Club."

"Votes, Mr. Trent? What for?"

"School Board, or County Council, or Parliament," said Oliver, coolly.
"Or even Board of Guardians. I don't know what your father's ambitions
are, exactly. But popularity is always a good thing."

Lesley pondered a little, the color rising in her cheeks. "Then," she
said, "you think my father does good things from--from what people call
'interested motives?'"

"Good heavens, no, Miss Brooke, I never said anything of the kind,"
declared Oliver, somewhat alarmed by her straightforwardness. "I was
only thinking of the general actions of man, not of your father in
particular."

Lesley nodded. "I don't quite understand," she said. "But that doesn't
matter for the present. I have another question to ask you, Mr. Trent.
Do you know anything about the poor?"

"I'm very poor myself," said Oliver, laughing. "Horribly poor. 'Pon my
word, I don't know any one poorer."

"Oh, you are laughing at me now," said Lesley, almost petulantly. "And
you said that you would not laugh."

She leaned back in her chair, with heightened color and brightening
eyes: her breath came a little more quickly than usual, as if her pulses
were quickened. There is nothing so catching as emotion. Oliver's
sluggish pulses began to stir at the sight of her. That soft and tender
face seemed more beautiful to him than the sparkle and vivacity of Ethel
Kenyon's. If it had not been for Ethel's twenty thousand pounds, he did
not know but what he would have preferred Lesley. Rosy had said that
Lesley would suit him best.

"I am not laughing; I swear I am not," he said earnestly. "I know what
you mean--you are thinking of the London poor. Your tender heart has
been stirred by the sight of them in the streets--they are dreadful to
look at, are they not? It is like you to feel their woes so acutely."

"I want to know," said Lesley, rather plaintively, "whether I cannot do
anything for them?"

"You--do anything--for the poor?" repeated Oliver. Then he scanned her
narrowly--scanned her shining hair, delicate features, Paris-made gown,
and dainty shoe--and laughed a little. "You can let them look at
you--that ought to be enough," he said.

Lesley frowned. "Nonsense, Mr. Trent.