ome people afraid of others,' said Franklin.

'It will always frighten inferior people to be talked to by their
superiors as if they were on a level. You probably talk to Thomas about
things he doesn't understand, and it bewilders him.' Helen, willing to
enlighten his idealism, smiled mildly at him, glancing down at her
letters as she spoke.

Mr. Kane surveyed her with his bright, steady gaze. Her simple
elucidation evidently left him far from satisfied, either with her or
the system. 'In essentials, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'in the power of
effort, endurance, devotion, I've no doubt that Thomas and I are
equals, and that's all that ought to matter.'

The others now were coming in, and Helen only shook her head, smiling on
and quite unconvinced as she said, taking her chair, and reaching out
her hand to shake Althea's, 'I'm afraid the inessentials matter most,
then, in human intercourse.'

From these fortuitous encounters Helen gathered the impression by
degrees that though Mr. Kane might not find her satisfactory, he found
her, in her incommunicativeness, quite as interesting as Thomas the
footman. He spent as much time in endeavouring to probe her as he did in
endeavouring to probe Baines, even more time. He would sit beside her
garden-chair looking over scientific papers, making a remark now and
then on their contents--contents as remote from Helen's comprehension as
was the housing of the Berlin poor from Thomas's; and sometimes he would
ask her a searching question, over the often frivolous answer to which
he would carefully reflect.

'I gather, Miss Buchanan,' he said to her one afternoon, when they were
thus together under the trees, 'I gather that the state of your health
isn't good. Would it be inadmissible on my part to ask you if there is
anything really serious the matter with you?'

'My state of health?' said Helen, startled. 'My health is perfectly
good. Who told you it wasn't?'

'Why, nobody. But since you've been here--that's a fortnight now--I've
observed that you've led an invalid's life.'

'I am lazy, that's all; and I'm in rather a bad temper,' Helen smiled;
'and it's very warm weather.'

'Well, when you're not lazy; when you're not in a bad temper; when it's
cold weather--what do you do with yourself, anyway?' Franklin, now that
he had fairly come to his point, folded his papers, clasped his hands
around his knees and looked expectantly at her.

Helen returned his gaze for some moments i