aid after a while.
"You have to be educated up to some kind of literature. I daresay there
will come a time when you will be grateful that I have given you an
opportunity of meeting beautiful thoughts dressed in beautiful language."

She looked up at this.

"May I go now, Mr. Lyne?" she asked.

"Not yet," he replied coolly. "You said just now you didn't understand
what I was talking about. I'll put it plainer this time. You're a very
beautiful girl, as you probably know, and you are destined, in all
probability, to be the mate of a very average suburban-minded person, who
will give you a life tantamount to slavery. That is the life of the
middle-class woman, as you probably know. And why would you submit to
this bondage? Simply because a person in a black coat and a white collar
has mumbled certain passages over you--passages which have neither
meaning nor, to an intelligent person, significance. I would not take
the trouble of going through such a foolish ceremony, but I would take a
great deal of trouble to make you happy."

He walked towards her slowly and laid one hand upon her shoulder.
Instinctively she shrank back and he laughed.

"What do you say?"

She swung round on him, her eyes blazing but her voice under control.

"I happen to be one of those foolish, suburban-minded people," she said,
"who give significance to those mumbled words you were speaking about.
Yet I am broad-minded enough to believe that the marriage ceremony would
not make you any happier or more unhappy whether it was performed or
omitted. But, whether it were marriage or any other kind of union, I
should at least require a man."

He frowned at her.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and the soft quality of his voice underwent
a change.

Her voice was full of angry tears when she answered him.

"I should not want an erratic creature who puts horrid sentiments into
indifferent verse. I repeat, I should want a man."

His face went livid.

"Do you know whom you are talking to?" he asked, raising his voice.

"I am talking to Thornton Lyne," said she, breathing quickly, "the
proprietor of Lyne's Stores, the employer of Odette Rider who draws three
pounds every week from him."

He was breathless with anger.

"Be careful!" he gasped. "Be careful!"

"I am speaking to a man whose whole life is a reproach to the very name
of man!" she went on speaking rapidly. "A man who is sincere in nothing,
who is living on the brains and reputation