house in New York. After a couple of years' experience
there he would come back to the London house, and, if his work justified
it, I am prepared to buy him a partnership in the firm. He would then
be his own master, free to do as he chose, but for these two years he
must be free, with no other responsibility than this work."

"You think," queried Pixie slowly, "that I should interfere ... that he
would do his work better without me?"

"It's not a question of thinking, Miss O'Shaughnessy. I am not content
to think. I want to make _sure_ that Stanor will settle seriously to
work and keep in the same mind. He is a good fellow, a dear fellow,
but, hitherto at least, he has not been stable."

"He has never been engaged before?"

"Not actually. I have been forewarned in time to prevent matters
reaching that length. Twice over--"

A small hand waved imperiously for silence.

"I don't _think_," said Pixie sternly, "that you have any right to tell
me things like that. If Stanor wants me to know, he can tell me
himself. It's his affair. I am not at all curious." She drew a
fluttering breath, and stared down at the ground, and a silence followed
during which Stephen was denouncing himself as a hard-hearted tyrant,
when suddenly a minute voice spoke in his ear--

"Were they--_pretty_?"

It was impossible to resist the smile which twitched at his lips.
Unpleasant as was the nature of his errand, he, the most unsmiling of
men, had already twice over been moved to merriment. Stephen was
reflecting on the incongruity of the fact, when Pixie again answered his
unspoken retort.

"It's not curiosity, it's interest. _Quite_ a different thing! And
even if they _were_, it's much more serious when a man cares for a girl
for her--er--mental attractions, because they go on getting better,
instead of fading away like a pretty face. It's very difficult to know
what is right. ... I've promised Stanor, and he has promised me, and it
seems a poor way of showing that you know your own mind, to break your
word at the beginning!"

"I don't ask you to break your word, Miss O'Shaughnessy; only to hold it
in abeyance. I am speaking in Stanor's interests, which we have equally
at heart. I know his character--forgive me!--better than you can do,
and I am asking you to help me in arranging a probation which I _know_
to be wise under the circumstances. Let him go to New York a free man;
let him work and show his mettle, and at