ess I did with my money the things that I
wanted to do, and got the things with it that I wanted to get. Whatever
takes my fancy, that's what I'll do."

He paused for a moment, mentally to scrutinize a brand-new project which
seemed, by some surreptitious agency, to have already taken his fancy.
It was a curious project; there were attractive things about it, and
objections to it suggested themselves as well.

"I may decide," he began speaking again, still revolving this
hypothetical scheme in his thoughts--"I may want to--well, here's what
occurs to me as an off-chance. I take an interest in your daughter, d'ye
see? and it seems a low-down sort of thing to me that she should be so
poor. Well, then--I might say to you, here's two thousand a year, say,
made over to you in your name, on the understanding that you turn over
half of it, say, to her. She could take it from you, of course, as her
father. You could say you made it out of the Company. Of course it might
happen, later on, that I might like to have a gentle hint dropped to
her, d'ye see, as to where it really came from. Mind, I don't say this
is what is going to be done. It merely occurred to me."

After waiting for a moment for some comment, he added a second thought:
"You'd have to set about making friends with her, you know. In any case,
you'd better begin at that at once."

The General remained buried in reflection. He lighted a cigarette, and
poured out for himself still another petit verre. His pursed lips and
knitted brows were eloquent of intense mental activity.

"Well, do you see any objections to it?" demanded Thorpe, at last.

"I do not quite see the reasons for it," answered the other, slowly.
"What would you gain by it?"

"How do you mean--gain?" put in the other, with peremptory intolerance
of tone.

General Kervick spread his hands in a quick little gesture. These hands
were withered, but remarkably well-kept. "I suppose one doesn't do
something for nothing," he said. "I see what I would gain, and what she
would gain, but I confess I don't see what advantage you would get out
of it."

"No-o, I daresay you don't," assented Thorpe, with sneering serenity.
"But what does that matter? You admit that you see what you would gain.
That's enough, isn't it?"

The older man's veined temples twitched for an instant. He straightened
himself in his chair, and looked hard at his companion. There was a
glistening of moisture about his staring eyes.