Miss Roots early the next morning on
this subject; and at the same time he found out from her what Lucia
had been doing in the last five years. She had not been (as Jewdwine
had allowed him to suppose) abroad all the time with Kitty Palliser.
She had only lived with Miss Palliser in the holidays. The rest of the
year, of the five years, she had been working for her living as music
mistress in a Women's College somewhere in the south of England. To
his gesture of horror Miss Roots replied that this was by no means the
hideous destiny he conceived it to be.

"But--for _her_--" he exclaimed.

"And why not for her?" Miss Roots, B.A., retorted, stung by his
undisguised repugnance. If Lucia _had_ got her post merely by interest
(which Miss Roots seemed to consider as something of a blot on her
career) at the end of her first year she had the pick of the students
waiting for her. Unfortunately Lucia had never been strong; and this
summer her health had completely broken down.

At that he shuddered, and turned abruptly away. Miss Roots looked at
him and wondered why. When he approached her again it was to offer
her, with every delicacy and hesitation, the loan of his study for the
time of Miss Harden's visit. This was not an easy thing to do; but he
was helped by several inspirations. The room, he said, was simply
standing empty all day. He had hardly any use for it now. He would be
kept busy at the office up to the time of his marriage. And he thought
it would be a little more comfortable for Miss Harden than the public
drawing-room.

"I want," he said (lying with a certain splendour), "to pay some
attention to her. You see, she's my editor's cousin--"

Miss Roots turned on him a large look that took him in, his monstrous
mendacity and all. But she nodded as much as to say that the
explanation passed.

"One hardly likes to think of her, you know, sitting in the same room
with Soper."

"We all have to put up with Mr. Soper."

"Yes; but if she isn't strong, she ought to have some place where she
can be alone and rest. Besides, it'll be nicer for _you_. You'll see a
great deal more of her, you know, that way."

In the end the offer was accepted. For, as Miss Roots pointed out to
her friend, it would give him far more pleasure to lend his room than
to sit in it himself.

Certainly it gave him pleasure, a thrilling, subtle, and perfidious
pleasure, every time that he thought of Lucia occupying his room. But
before she