thing, for my
great-grandmother!" And then as his glare didn't fade: "Bender makes my
life a burden--for the love of my precious Lawrence."

"Which you're weakly letting him grab?"--nothing could have been
finer with this than Lord Theign's reprobation unless it had been his
surprise.

She shook her head as in bland compassion for such an idea. "It isn't
a payment, you goose--it's a bribe! I've withstood him, these trying
weeks, as a rock the tempest; but he wrote that and left it there, the
fiend, to tempt me--to corrupt me!"

"Without putting his name?"--her companion again turned over the cheque.

She bethought herself, clearly with all her genius, as to this anomaly,
and the light of reality broke. "He must have been interrupted in the
artful act--he sprang up with such a bound at Mr. Crimble's news. At
once then--for his interest in it--he hurried off, leaving the cheque
forgotten and unfinished." She smiled more intensely, her eyes attached,
as from fascination, to the morsel of paper still handled by her friend.
"But of course on his next visit he'll _add_ his great signature."

"The devil he will!"--and Lord Theign, with the highest spirit, tore the
crisp token into several pieces, which fluttered, as worthless now as
pure snowflakes, to the floor.

"Ay, ay, ay!"--it drew from her a wail of which the character, for its
sharp inconsequence, was yet comic.

This renewed his stare at her. "Do _you_ want to back out? I mean from
your noble stand."

As quickly, however, she had saved herself. "I'd rather do even what
you're doing--offer my treasure to the Thingumbob!"

He was touched by this even to sympathy. "Will you then _join_ me in
setting the example of a great donation------?"

"To the What-do-you-call-it?" she extravagantly smiled.

"I call it," he said with dignity, "the 'National Gallery.'"

She closed her eyes as with a failure of breath. "Ah my dear friend--!"

"It would convince me," he went on, insistent and persuasive.

"Of the sincerity of my affection?"--she drew nearer to him.

"It would comfort me"--he was satisfied with his own expression. Yet
in a moment, when she had come all rustlingly and fragrantly close, "It
would captivate me," he handsomely added.

"It would captivate you?" It was for _her_, we should have seen, to be
satisfied with his expression; and, with our more informed observation
of all it was a question of her giving up, she would have struck us as
subtly barga