'I hope they are as glad of my friendship as I am of theirs.'

'Pity to see them in a place like that, isn't it? They ought to have a
good house, with plenty of servants. It's bad enough for a civilised
man to have to rough it, but I hate to see women living in a sordid way.
Don't you think they could both play their part in a drawing-room, with
a little experience?'

'Surely there's no doubt of it.'

'Maud would look really superb if she were handsomely dressed. She
hasn't a common face, by any means. And Dora is pretty, I think. Well,
they shall go and see some people before long. The difficulty is, one
doesn't like it to be known that they live in such a crib; but I daren't
advise them to go in for expense. One can't be sure that it would repay
them, though--Now, in my own case, if I could get hold of a few thousand
pounds I should know how to use it with the certainty of return; it
would save me, probably, a clear ten years of life; I mean, I should go
at a jump to what I shall be ten years hence without the help of money.
But they have such a miserable little bit of capital, and everything is
still so uncertain. One daren't speculate under the circumstances.'

Marian made no reply.

'You think I talk of nothing but money?' Jasper said suddenly, looking
down into her face.

'I know too well what it means to be without money.'

'Yes, but--you do just a little despise me?'

'Indeed, I don't, Mr Milvain.'

'If that is sincere, I'm very glad. I take it in a friendly sense. I am
rather despicable, you know; it's part of my business to be so. But
a friend needn't regard that. There is the man apart from his
necessities.'

The silence was then unbroken till they came to the lower end of Park
Street, the junction of roads which lead to Hampstead, to Highgate, and
to Holloway.

'Shall you take an omnibus?' Jasper asked.

She hesitated.

'Or will you give me the pleasure of walking on with you? You are tired,
perhaps?'

'Not the least.'

For the rest of her answer she moved forward, and they crossed into the
obscurity of Camden Road.

'Shall I be doing wrong, Mr Milvain,' Marian began in a very low
voice, 'if I ask you about the authorship of something in this month's
Current?'

'I'm afraid I know what you refer to. There's no reason why I shouldn't
answer a question of the kind.'

'It was Mr Fadge himself who reviewed my father's book?'

'It was--confound him! I don't know another man who could have