"I? Oh, surely not!"

"You will! And, what is more, I am going to split all the branches up into divisions, and appoint superintendents and manageresses, at a reasonable salary. And you," he concluded, "are going to be one of the latter."

She shook her head firmly.

"No! I must remain my own mistress."

"Why not? I want to allot to you the work where you can do most good.

You know more about it than any one. There is no one half so suitable.

I want you to throw up your other work come into this altogether, be my right hand, and let me feel that I have one person on the council whom I can rely upon."

She was silent for a moment. She leaned back in her chair, but even in the semi-obscurity the extreme pallor of her face troubled him.

"You must remember, too," he said, "that the work will not be so hard as now. Lately you have given us too much of your time. Indeed, I am not sure that it is not you who need a holiday more than I."

She raised her eyes.

"This is--what you came to say to me?"

"Yes. I was anxious to get your promise."

There was another short silence. Then she spoke in dull even tones.

"I must think it over. You want my whole time, and you want to pay me for it."

"Yes. It is only reasonable, and we can afford it. I should draw a salary myself if I had not a little of my own."

She raised her eyes once more to his mercilessly, and drew a quick little breath. Yes, it was there written in his face--the blank utter indifference of good-fellowship. It was all that he had come to ask her, it was all that he would ever ask her. Suddenly she felt her heart throbbing in quick short beats-her cheeks burned. They were alone--even her little maid had gone out. Why was he so miserably indifferent? She stumbled to her feet, and suddenly stooping down laid her burning cheeks against his.

"Kingston," she said, "you are so cruel--and I am so lonely. Can't you see that I am miserable? Kiss me!"

Brooks sat petrified, utterly amazed at this self-yielding on the part of the last woman in this world whom he would ever have thought capable of anything of the sort.

"Kiss me--at once."

He touched her lips timorously. Then she sprang away from him, her cheeks aflame, her eyes on fire, her hair strangely ruffled. She pointed to the door.

"Please go--quickly."

He picked up his hat.

"But, Mary! I--"

"Please!"

She stamped her foot.

"But--"

"I will write. You shall hear from me to-morrow. But if you have any pity for me at all you will go now--this moment."

He rose and went. She heard him turn the handle of the door, heard his footsteps upon the stone stairs outside.

She counted them idly. One, two, three, four now he was on the next landing. She heard them again, less distinctly, always less distinctly.

Then silence. She ran to the window. There he was upon the pavement, now he was crossing the road on his way to the underground station. She tore at her handkerchief, waved it wildly for a moment--and then stopped. He was gone--and she. The hot colour came rushing painfully into her cheeks. She threw herself face downwards upon the sofa.

CHAPTER IV

LORD ARRANMORE IN A NEW ROLE

"The epoch-making nights of one's life," Mr. Hennibul remarked, "are few. Let us sit down and consider what has happened."

"A seat," Lady Caroom sighed. "What luxury! But where?"

"My knowledge of the geography of this house," Mr. Hennibul answered, "has more than once been of the utmost service to me, but I have never appreciated it more than at this moment. Accept my arm, Lady Caroom."

They made a slow circuit of the room, passed through an ante-chamber and came out in a sort of winter-garden looking over the Park. Lady Caroom exclaimed with delight.

"You dear man," she exclaimed. "Of course I knew of this place--isn't it charming?--but I had no idea that we could reach it from the reception-rooms. Let us move our chairs over there. We can sit and watch the hansoms turn into Piccadilly."

"It shall be as you say," he answered. "I wonder if all London is as excited to-night as the crowd we have just left."

"To me," she murmured, "London seems always imperturbable, stonily indifferent to good or evil. I believe that on the eve of a revolution we should dine and go to the theatre, choose our houses at which to spend the evening, and avoid sweet champagne with the same care. You and I may know that to-night England has thrown overboard a national policy. Yet I doubt whether either of us will sleep the less soundly."

"Not only that," he said, "but the Government have to-day shown themselves possessed of a penetration and appreciation of mind for which I for one scarcely gave them credit. They have made me a peer."

She looked at him with an amused smile.

"They make judges and peers for two reasons" she remarked.

"That, Lady Caroom, is unkind," he said. "I can assure you that throughout my career I have never made a nuisance of myself to any one.

In the House I have been a model member, and I have always obeyed my whip in fear and trembling. At the Bar I have been mildness itself.

The /St. James's Gazette/ speaks of my urbanity, and the courtesy with which I have always conducted the most arduous cross-examination. You should read the /St. James's Gazette/, Lady Caroom. I do not know the biographical editor, but it is easy to predict a future for him. He has common-sense and insight. The paragraph about myself touched me. I have cut it out, and I mean to keep it always with me."

"The Press," she said, "have all those things cut and dried. No doubt if you made friends with that young man he would let you read your obituary notice. I have a friend who has corrected the proofs of his already."

Hennibul smiled.

"My cousin Avenal, the police magistrate," he said, "actually read his in the Times. He was bathing at Jersey and was carried away by currents, and picked up by a Sark fishing-smack. They took him to Sark, and he was so charmed with his surroundings and the hospitality of the people that he quite forgot to let anybody know where he was. When he read his obituary notice he almost decided to remain dead. He declared that it was quite impossible to live up to it."

"Our charity now-a-days," she remarked, "always begins with the dead."

"Let me try and awaken yours towards the living!" he said.

She laughed.

"Are you smitten with the Brooks' fever?" she asked.