ly at her. "Well, I'll combine the two," he said.

"Then I suppose you will be altogether irresistible," she said, lightly.
"There will be no pheasants left for other people at all."

"I don't mind being chaffed," he told her, with gravity. "So long as
you're good-natured, you can make game of me all you like. But I'm in
earnest, all the same. I'm not going to play the fool with my money and
my power. I have great projects. Sometime I'll tell you about them. They
will all be put through--every one of them. And you wouldn't object to
talking them over with me--would you?"

"My opinion on 'projects' is of no earthly value--to myself or anyone
else."

"But still you'd give me your advice if I asked it?" he persisted.
"Especially if it was a project in which you were concerned?"

After a moment's constrained silence she said to him, "You must have
no projects, Mr. Thorpe, in which I am concerned. This talk is all very
wide of the mark. You are not entitled to speak as if I were mixed up
with your affairs. There is nothing whatever to warrant it."

"But how can you help being in my projects if I put you there, and keep
you there?" he asked her, with gleeful boldness. "And just ask yourself
whether you do really want to help it. Why should you? You've seen
enough of me to know that I can be a good friend. And I'm the kind of
friend who amounts to something--who can and will do things for those he
likes. What obligation are you under to turn away that kind of a friend,
when he offers himself to you? Put that question plainly to yourself."

"But you are not in a position to nominate the questions that I am to
put to myself," she said. The effort to import decision into her tone
and manner was apparent. "That is what I desire you to understand. We
must not talk any more about me. I am not the topic of conversation."

"But first let me finish what I wanted to say," he insisted. "My talk
won't break any bones. You'd be wrong not to listen to it--because
it's meant to help you--to be of use to you. This is the thing, Lady
Cressage: You're in a particularly hard and unpleasant position. Like my
friend Plowden"--he watched her face narrowly but in vain, in the dull
light, for any change at mention of the name--"like my friend Plowden
you have a position and title to keep up, and next to nothing to keep
it up on. But he can go down into the City and make money--or try to. He
can accept Directorships and tips about the market an