lliard-table, vivid in the spreading suspended lamplight. "I
think I ought to tell you the figure I have in mind."

Another person present might have felt rather taxed either to determine
the degree of provocation represented by Vanderbank's considerate smile,
or to say if there was an appreciable interval before he rang out:
"I think, you know, you oughtn't to do anything of the sort. Let that
alone, please. The great thing is the interest--the great thing is the
wish you express. It represents a view of me, an attitude toward me--!"
He pulled up, dropping his arms and turning away before the complete
image.

"There's nothing in those things that need overwhelm you. It would be
odd if you hadn't yourself, about your value and your future a feeling
quite as lively as any feeling of mine. There IS mine at all events. I
can't help it. Accept it. Then of the other feeling--how SHE moves me--I
won't speak."

"You sufficiently show it!"

Mr. Longdon continued to watch the bright circle on the table, lost in
which a moment he let his friend's answer pass. "I won't begin to you on
Nanda."

"Don't," said Vanderbank. But in the pause that ensued each, in one way
or another, might have been thinking of her for himself.

It was broken by Mr. Longdon's presently going on: "Of course what it
superficially has the air of is my offering to pay you for taking a
certain step. It's open to you to be grand and proud--to wrap yourself
in your majesty and ask if I suppose you bribeable. I haven't spoken
without having thought of that."

"Yes," said Vanderbank all responsively, "but it isn't as if you
proposed to me, is it, anything dreadful? If one cares for a girl one's
deucedly glad she has money. The more of anything good she has the
better. I may assure you," he added with the brightness of his friendly
intelligence and quite as if to show his companion the way to be least
concerned--"I may assure you that once I were disposed to act on your
suggestion I'd make short work of any vulgar interpretation of my
motive. I should simply try to be as fine as yourself." He smoked, he
moved about, then came up in another place. "I dare say you know that
dear old Mitchy, under whose blessed roof we're plotting this midnight
treason, would marry her like a shot and without a penny."

"I think I know everything--I think I've thought of everything. Mr.
Mitchett," Mr. Longdon added, "is impossible."

Vanderbank appeared for an instant to wo