investment by ten.'

'If it had been thousands!'

'Clearly, you sell; always jump out of a mounted mine, unless you're at
the bottom of it.'

'There are City-articles against the mine this morning--or I should have
been on my way to Whinfold at this moment. The shares are lower.'

'The merry boys are at work to bring your balloon to the ground, that
you may quit it for them to ascend. Tiddler has enemies, like the best
of mines: or they may be named lovers, if you like. And mines that have
gone up, go down for a while before they rise again; it's an affair of
undulations; rocket mines are not so healthy. The stories are false, for
the time. I had the latest from Dartrey Fenellan yesterday. He's here
next month; some time in August.'

'He is married, is he not?'

'Was.'

Victor's brevity sounded oddly to Lady Grace.

'Is he not a soldier?' she said.

'Soldiers and parsons!' Victor interjected.

Now she saw. She understood the portent of Mr. Barmby's hovering offer
of the choice of songs, and the recent tremulousness of the welling
Bethesda.

But she had come about her own business; and after remarking, that when
there is a prize there must be competition, or England will have
to lower her flag, she declared her resolve to stick to Tiddler,
exclaiming: 'It's only in mines that twenty times the stake is not a
dream of the past!'

'The Riviera green field on the rock is always open to you,' said
Victor.

She put out her hand to be taken. 'Not if you back me here. It really
is not gambling when yours is the counsel I follow. And if I'm to be
a widow, I shall have to lean on a friend, gifted like you. I love
adventure, danger;--well, if we two are in it; just to see my captain
in a storm. And if the worst happens, we go down together. It 's the
detestation of our deadly humdrum of modern life; some inherited love of
fighting.'

'Say, brandy.'

'Does not Mr. Durance accuse you of an addiction to the brandy novel?'

'Colney may call it what he pleases. If I read fiction, let it be
fiction; airier than hard fact. If I see a ballet, my troop of short
skirts must not go stepping like pavement policemen. I can't read dull
analytical stuff or "stylists" when I want action--if I'm to give my
mind to a story. I can supply the reflections. I'm English--if Colney
's right in saying we always come round to the story with the streak of
supernaturalism.

I don't ask for bloodshed: that's what his "brandy" means.'