him my help. He coolly
declined it--talked of succeeding by his own exertions. So priggish,
you know, and I felt bound to let him see that the path to literary fame
was not altogether the pleasant highway he seemed to expect."

"That was all?"

"Everything."

"He wounded your vanity; you stoop to retaliate."

She beamed upon him.

"How nice of you to be so candid. I value frankness from my friends
more than anything in the world.

"It is the exact truth!"

"It was unworthy of you," he said shortly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You think much too well of me," she said. "You know I am a woman to
the finger tips."

"I don't call that a womanly action," he said.

"Ah! that is because you know nothing of women." There was a moment's
silence. From a distant room, dimly seen through a vista of curved and
pillared archways, a woman's voice came pealing out to them, the
passionate climax of an Italian love song, the voice of a prima donna of
world-wide fame. A storm of applause was echoed through the near rooms,
a buzz of appreciative criticism followed. Drexley rose up from the
seat where he had been sitting.

"Thank you," he said. "I have learned what I wanted to know. I will go
now. Good evening."

She stood by his side--as tall as he--and looked at him curiously. It
was as though she were seeking to discover from his face how much his
opinion of her had altered. But if so, she was disappointed. His face
was inscrutable.

"You are angry with me?"

"I have no right to be that."

"Annoyed?"

"Not with you."

"After all," she said, "there is no harm done. He will come to me, and
then I shall see that his future is properly shaped. If he is what I
have an idea that he may be, I shall be of far greater help to him than
ever you could have been."

But Drexley was silent. He was thinking then of her _proteges_. Had
they, after all, been such brilliant successes? One or two were doing
fairly well, from a pecuniary point of view--but there were others! She
read his thought, and a faint spot of colour burned for a moment on her
cheek. She was very nearly angry. What a bear, a brute!

"I know what you were thinking of," she said coldly. "It is not
generous of you. I did all I could for poor Austin, and as for
Fennel--well, he was mad."

"You are the kind of woman," he said, looking her suddenly full in the
face, "who deals out kindnesses to men which they would often be much
better without. You are gener