kirts as she turned to precede
him down the passage! But he ignored it. That is to say, he easily
steeled himself against it.

She led him to the large room which served as her dancing academy--the
bare-boarded place in which, a year and a half before, she had taught
his clumsy limbs the principles of grace and rhythm. She occupied the
back part of a building of which the front part was an empty shop. The
shop had been tenanted by her father, one of whose frequent bankruptcies
had happened there; after which his stock of the latest novelties in
inexpensive furniture had been seized by rapacious creditors, and Mr
Earp had migrated to Birmingham, where he was courting the Official
Receiver anew. Ruth had remained solitary and unprotected, with a
considerable amount of household goods which had been her mother's.
(Like all professional bankrupts, Mr Earp had invariably had belongings
which, as he could prove to his creditors, did not belong to him.)
Public opinion had justified Ruth in her enterprise of staying in
Bursley on her own responsibility and renting part of the building, in
order not to lose her "connection" as a dancing-mistress. Public opinion
said that "there would have been no sense in her going dangling after
her wastrel of a father."

"Quite a long time since we saw anything of each other," observed Ruth
in rather a pleasant style, as she sat down and as he sat down.

It was. The intimate ecstasy of the supper-dance had never been
repeated. Denry's exceeding industry in carving out his career, and his
desire to graduate as an accomplished clubman, had prevented him from
giving to his heart that attention which it deserved, having regard to
his tender years.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" said Denry.

Then there was a pause, and they both glanced vaguely about the
inhospitable and very wooden room. Now was the moment for Denry to carry
out his pre-arranged plan in all its savage simplicity. He did so.
"I've called about the rent, Miss Earp," he said, and by an effort
looked her in the eyes.

"The rent?" exclaimed Ruth, as though she had never in all her life
heard of such a thing as rent; as though June 24 (recently past) was an
ordinary day like any other day.

"Yes," said Denry.

"What rent?" asked Ruth, as though for aught she guessed it might have
been the rent of Buckingham Palace that he had called about.

"Yours," said Denry.

"Mine!" she murmured. "But what has my rent got to do with you?" she