g, on the side of brevity, but in the succeeding
quarter of an hour Eve was able to gather from his careless talk, which
sedulously avoided the pathetic note, a fair notion of what his
existence had been from boyhood upward. It supplemented the account of
himself she had received from him when they met for the first time. As
he proceeded she grew more attentive, and occasionally allowed her eyes
to encounter his.

"There's only one other person who has heard all this from me," he said
at length. "That's a friend of mine at Birmingham--a man called
Narramore. When I got Dengate's money I went to Narramore, and I told
him what use I was going to make of it."

"That's what you haven't told me," remarked the listener.

"I will, now that you can understand me. I resolved to go right away
from all the sights and sounds that I hated, and to live a man's life,
for just as long as the money would last."

"What do you mean by a man's life?"

"Why, a life of enjoyment, instead of a life not worthy to be called
life at all. This is part of it, this evening. I have had enjoyable
hours since I left Dudley, but never yet one like this. And because I
owe it to you, I shall remember you with gratitude as long as I
remember anything at all."

"That's a mistake," said Eve. "You owe the enjoyment, whatever it is,
to your money, not to me."

"You prefer to look at it in that way. Be it so. I had a delightful
month in Paris, but I was driven back to England by loneliness. Now, if
_you_ had been there! If I could have seen you each evening for an hour
or two, had dinner with you at the restaurant, talked with you about
what I had seen in the day--but that would have been perfection, and I
have never hoped for more than moderate, average pleasure--such as
ordinary well-to-do men take as their right."

"What did you do in Paris?"

"Saw things I have longed to see any time the last fifteen years or so.
Learned to talk a little French. Got to feel a better educated man than
I was before."

"Didn't Dudley seem a long way off when you were there?" asked Eve half
absently.

"In another planet.--You thought once of going to Paris; Miss Ringrose
told me."

Eve knitted her brows, and made no answer.

CHAPTER X

When fruit had been set before them--and as he was peeling a banana:

"What a vast difference," said Hilliard, "between the life of people
who dine, and of those who don't! It isn't the mere pleasure of eating,
the q