f only you
have an acquaintance with some of the chief City men. The great mine was
named, and the rush for allotments. She knew a couple of the Directors.
They vowed to her that ten per cent. was a trifle; the fortune to be
expected out of the mine was already clearly estimable at forties and
fifties. For their part they anticipated cent. per cent. Mrs. Cherson
said she wanted money, and had therefore invested in the mine. It seemed
so consequent, the cost of things being enormous! She and her sister
Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett owned husbands who did their bidding, because of
their having the brains, it might be understood. Thus five thousand
pounds invested would speedily bring five thousand pounds per annum.
Diana had often dreamed of the City of London as the seat of magic; and
taking the City's contempt for authorcraft and the intangible as, from
its point of view, justly founded, she had mixed her dream strangely
with an ancient notion of the City's probity. Her broker's shaking head
did not damp her ardour for shares to the full amount of her ability to
purchase. She remembered her satisfaction at the allotment; the golden
castle shot up from this fountain mine. She had a frenzy for mines and
fished in some English with smaller sums. 'I am now a miner,' she had
exclaimed, between dismay at her audacity and the pride of it. Why
had she not consulted Redworth? He would peremptorily have stopped the
frenzy in its first intoxicating effervescence. She, like Mrs. Cherson,
like all women who have plunged upon the cost of things, wanted money.
She naturally went to the mine. Address him for counsel in the person
of dupe, she could not; shame was a barrier. Could she tell him that the
prattle of a woman, spendthrift as Mrs. Cherson, had induced her to risk
her money? Latterly the reports of Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett were not of the
flavour to make association of their names agreeable to his hearing.

She had to sit down in the buzz of her self-reproaches and amazement at
the behaviour of that reputable City, shrug, and recommence the labour
of her pen. Material misfortune had this one advantage; it kept her from
speculative thoughts of her lover, and the meaning of his absence and,
silence.

Diana's perusal of the incomplete CANTATRICE was done with the cold
critical eye interpreting for the public. She was forced to write
on nevertheless, and exactly in the ruts of the foregoing matter. It
propelled her. No longer perversely, of neces