perhaps, but no more than other men."

"I hope so, at least not more than the men I saw you with last night."

"You saw me! Where?"

"In a coffee house near St. Paul's. The man who left you a few minutes
ago was making you drink and the others were helping him. Your glass was
never empty save when you yourself had emptied it. I don't like that
white-faced squinting man. His voice is horrid. His vulgar talk--oh, it
made me put my fingers to my ears and run out of the house. He doesn't
mean you well."

"I--I like him no more than you," stammered Vane. "But he wants me to
write for him. It would put money in my pocket. How could I refuse to
drink with him?"

"Why not? He would not employ you if he did not think it was to his own
good. And have you promised?"

"No--not yet. He was persuading me just now but I've not consented."

"Then don't. He's a bad, a wicked man I feel sure. Have nothing to do
with him."

"I swear to you I've no desire. But a penniless scribbler has no choice
if he has to live--that is if life be worth living, which I sometimes
doubt."

"You shouldn't think like that. It's cowardly. A man should fight his
way through the world. Now a woman...."

"She's armed better than a man. Her charm--her beauty--her wit. Nature
bestows on her all conquering weapons."

"Which she as often as not misuses and turns against herself. But Mr.
Vane," the note of bitterness had vanished; her voice was now earnest,
almost grave, "you weren't despondent when you were facing an angry mob
after doing me a service I shall never forget. You underrate yourself."

"Oh, I admit that when alone I'm like a boat at the mercy of wind and
wave, but with some one to inspire--to guide--bah, 'tis useless talking
of the unattainable."

Vane uttered the last words in a reckless tone and with a shrug of the
shoulders. His eyes gazed yearningly, despairingly into hers, and there
had never been a time in Lavinia's life when she was less able to
withstand a wave of heartfelt emotion.

Her nerves at that moment were terribly unstrung. She had had a most
exhausting day lasting from early dawn. The strain of the trying
interview at Twickenham; the anxious ordeal of singing before such
supreme judges as she deemed them; the jubilation of success and the
praise they had bestowed upon her, and Gay's promises as to her future
had turned her brain for the time being. Then the episode of the
highwayman--that in itself was sufficiently di