would like more money, she had, and always would
have, quite enough to live on happily. The idea of an insecure future
for her had never entered his head. He now knew that, for all his
theories of the independence of women, it was quite intolerable to
contemplate an insecure future for Helen. Some women might have it in
them to secure themselves--she was not one of them. She was a flower in
a vase; if the vase were taken away the flower would simply lie where it
fell and wither. He had put down his tea-cup while Miss Buchanan spoke,
and he sat gazing at her. 'Isn't Miss Helen provided for?' he asked.

'Yes, in a sense she is,' said Miss Buchanan, who, after drinking her
tea, did not go on to her muffin, but still leaned back with folded
arms, her deep-set, small grey eyes fixed on Franklin's face. 'I've seen
to that as best I could; but one can't save much out of a small annuity.
Helen, after my death, will have an income of L150 a year. It isn't
enough. You have only to look at Helen to see that it isn't enough.
She's not fit to scrape and manage on that.'

Franklin repeated the sum thoughtfully. 'Well, no, perhaps not,' he half
thought, only half agreed; 'not leading the kind of life she does now.
If she could only work at something as well; bring in a little more like
that.' But Miss Buchanan interrupted him.

'Nonsense, my dear man; what work is there--work that will bring in
money--for a decorative, untrained idler like Helen? And what time would
she have left to live the only life she's fit to lead if she had to make
money? I'm not worried about bare life for Helen; I'm worried about what
kind of life it's to be. Helen was brought up to be an idler and to make
a good marriage--like most girls of her class--and she hasn't made it,
and she's not likely to make it now.'

'One hundred and fifty pounds isn't enough,' said Franklin, still
thoughtfully, 'for a decorative idler.'

'That's just it,' Miss Buchanan acquiesced; and she went on after a
moment, 'I'm willing to call Helen a decorative idler if we are talking
of purely economic weights and measures; thank goodness there are other
standards, and we are not likely to see them eliminated from civilised
society for many a generation. For many a generation, I trust, there'll
be people in the world who don't earn their keep, as one may say, and
yet who are more worth while keeping than most of the people who do. To
my mind Helen is such a person. I'd like to tell