o enable him
to recognise Iris.

"You oughtn't to be here alone," he said.

"Oh, why not?" she replied with a laugh. "I'm old enough to take care
of myself."

The wind had begun to moan; waves tide-borne against the jetty made a
hollow booming, and at moments scattered spray.

"How black it is to-night!" Iris added. "It will rain. There! I felt a
spot."

"Only a splash of sea-water, I think," replied Lashmar, standing close
beside her.

Both gazed at the dark vast of sea and sky. A pair of ramblers
approached them; a young man and a girl, talking loudly the tongue of
lower London.

"I know a young lady," sounded in the feminine voice, "as 'as a keeper
set with a di'mond and a hamethys--lovely!"

"Come away," said Dyce. "What a hateful place this is! How can you bear
to be among such brutes?"

Iris moved on by him, but said nothing.

"I felt ashamed," he added, "to find you with people like the Barkers.
Do you mean to say they don't disgust you?"

"They are not so bad as that," Iris weakly protested. "But you mustn't
think I regard them as intimate friends. It's only that--I've been
rather lonely lately. Len away at school--and several things--"

"Yes, yes, I understand. But they're no company for you. Do get away as
soon as possible."

Another couple went by them talking loudly the same vernacular.

"If I put a book down for a day," said the young woman, "I forget all
I've read. I've a hawful bad memory for readin'."

"How I loathe that class!" Lashmar exclaimed. "I never came to this
part of the coast, because I knew it was defiled by them. For heaven's
sake, get away t Go to some place where your ears won't be perpetually
outraged. I can't bear to think of leaving you here."

"I'll go as soon as ever I can--I promise you," murmured Iris. "There!
It really is beginning to rain. We must walk quickly."

"Will you take my arm?"

She did so, and they hurried on.

"That's the democracy," said Lashmar. "Those are the people for whom we
are told that the world exists. They get money, and it gives them
power. Meanwhile, the true leaders of mankind, as often as not,
struggle through their lives in poverty and neglect."

Iris's voice sounded timidly.

"You would feel it of no use to have just enough for independence?"

"For the present," he replied, "it would be all I ask. But I might just
as well ask for ten thousand a year."

The rain was beating upon them. During the ascent to Sunrise Terrace,