r things that she had tried to do for him during the
preceding months.

As to Marsham, while he dressed, he too recalled other checks that had
been recently paid for him, other anxious attempts that had been made to
please him. Since Diana had vanished from the scene, no complaisance, no
liberality had been too much for his mother's good-will. He had never
been so conscious of an atmosphere of money--much money. And there were
moments--what he himself would have described as morbid moments--when
it seemed to him the price of blood; when he felt himself to be a mere,
crude moral tale embodied and walking about. Yet how ridiculous! What
reasonable man, knowing what money means, and the power of it, but must
have flinched a little under such a test as had been offered to him? His
flinching had been nothing final or damnable. It was Diana, who, in her
ignorance of the world, had expected him to take the sacrifice as though
it were nothing and meant nothing--as no honest man of the world, in
fact, could have taken it.

* * * * *

When Marsham descended he found Alicia already in possession of the
drawing-room. Her gown of a brilliant shade of blue put the room out of
joint, and beside the startling effect of her hair, all the washed-out
decoration and conventional ornament which it contained made a worse
effect than usual. There was nothing conventional or effaced about
Alicia. She had become steadily more emphatic, more triumphant, more
self-confident.

"Well, what have you been doing with yourself?--nothing but politics?"
The careless, provocative smile with which the words were accomplished
roused a kind of instant antagonism in Marsham.

"Nothing--nothing, at least, worth anybody's remembering."

"You spoke at Dunscombe last week."

"I did."

"And you went to help Mr. Collins at the Sheffield bye-election."

"I did. I am very much flattered that you know so much about my
movements."

"I always know everything that you are doing," said Alicia,
quietly--"you, and Cousin Lucy."

"You have the advantage of me then"; his laugh was embarrassed, but not
amicable; "for I am afraid I have no idea what you have been doing
since Easter!"

"I have been at home, flirting with the Curate," said Alicia, with a
laugh. As she sat, with her head thrown back against the chair, the
light sparkling on her white skin, on her necklace of yellow topazes,
and the jewelled fan in her hands, the folds