ght her how to exert it.

'But you resign yourself very cheerfully to the necessity,' she said,
looking at him with merely intellectual eyes.

'You had rather I lamented my fate in not being able to devote myself to
nobly unremunerative work?'

There was a note of irony here. It caused her a tremor, but she held her
position.

'That you never do so would make one think--but I won't speak unkindly.'

'That I neither care for good work nor am capable of it,' Jasper
finished her sentence. 'I shouldn't have thought it would make you think
so.'

Instead of replying she turned her look towards the door. There was a
footstep on the stairs, but it passed.

'I thought it might be Dora,' she said.

'She won't be here for another couple of hours at least,' replied Jasper
with a slight smile.

'But you said--?'

'I sent her to Mrs Boston Wright's that I might have an opportunity of
talking to you. Will you forgive the stratagem?'

Marian resumed her former attitude, the faintest smile hovering about
her lips.

'I'm glad there's plenty of time,' he continued. 'I begin to suspect
that you have been misunderstanding me of late. I must set that right.'

'I don't think I have misunderstood you.'

'That may mean something very disagreeable. I know that some people whom
I esteem have a very poor opinion of me, but I can't allow you to be one
of them. What do I seem to you? What is the result on your mind of all
our conversations?'

'I have already told you.'

'Not seriously. Do you believe I am capable of generous feeling?'

'To say no, would be to put you in the lowest class of men, and that a
very small one.''Good! Then I am not among the basest. But that doesn't
give me very distinguished claims upon your consideration. Whatever I
am, I am high in some of my ambitions.'

'Which of them?'

'For instance, I have been daring enough to hope that you might love
me.'

Marian delayed for a moment, then said quietly:

'Why do you call that daring?'

'Because I have enough of old-fashioned thought to believe that a woman
who is worthy of a man's love is higher than he, and condescends in
giving herself to him.'

His voice was not convincing; the phrase did not sound natural on his
lips. It was not thus that she had hoped to hear him speak. Whilst he
expressed himself thus conventionally he did not love her as she desired
to be loved.

'I don't hold that view,' she said.

'It doesn't surprise me. You are very r