"Kingston, I do. If I were a brave woman I would risk everything.

Sometimes when I see him, like a Banquo at a feast, with his eyes full of weariness and the mummy's smile upon his lips, I feel that I can keep away no longer. Kingston, let us go to him, you and I. Let us see if we can't tear off the mask."

He shook his head.

"He would laugh at us!"

"Will you try?"

He hesitated.

"No! But, Lady Caroom, you have no such debt of bitterness against him as I have. I cannot advise you--I would not dare. But if there is a spark of soul left in the man, such love as yours must fan it into warmth. If you have the courage--risk it."

Brooks left without seeing Sybil again, and turned northward. In Pall Mall he heard his name called from the steps of one of the great clubs.

He looked up and found Lord Arranmore leisurely descending.

"A word with you, Brooks," he said, coolly, "on a matter of business.

Will you step inside?"

Brooks hesitated. It was beginning to rain, and neither of them had umbrellas.

"As you will," he answered. "I have an appointment in half-an-hour."

"I shall not detain you ten minutes," Lord Arranmore answered. "There is a comfortable strangers' room here where we can chat. Will you have anything?"

"Nothing to drink, thanks," Brooks answered. "A cigarette, if you are going to smoke."

Lord Arranmore pushed his cigarette-case across the small round table which stood between their easy-chairs. The room was empty.

"You will find these tolerable. I promised to be brief, did I not? I wished to speak for a moment upon a subject which it seems to me might require a readjustment of our financial relations."

Brooks looked up puzzled but made no remark.

"I refer to the possibility of your desiring to marry. Be so good as not to interrupt me. I have seen you once or twice with Sybil Caroom, and there has been a whisper--but after all that is of no consequence. The name of the young lady would be no concern of mine. But in case you should be contemplating anything of the sort, I thought it as well that you should know what the usual family arrangements are."

"I am sorry," Brooks said, "but I really don't understand what you mean by family arrangements."

"No!" Lord Arranmore remarked, softly. "Perhaps if you would allow me to explain--it is your own time which is limited, you know. The eldest son of our family comes in, as you have been told, on his twenty-first birthday, to two thousand pounds a year, which income you are now in possession of. On his marriage that is increased to ten thousand a year, with the possession of either Enton or Mangohfred. in the present case you could take your choice, as I am perfectly indifferent which I retain. That is all I wished to say. I thought it best for you to understand the situation. Mr. Ascough will, at any time, put it into legal shape for you."

"You speak of this--arrangement," Brooks said, slowly, "as though it were a corroboration of the settlement upon the eldest son. This scarcely seems possible. There can be no such provision legally."

"I scarcely see," Lord Arranmore said, wearily, "what that has to do with it, The ten thousand pounds a year is, of course, not a legal charge upon the estates. But from time immemorial it has been the amount which has been the admitted portion of the eldest son upon marriage. It is no gift from me. It is the income due to Lord Kingston of Ross. If you wish for any future explanation I must really refer you to Mr. Ascough. The discussion of business details is by no means a favourite occupation of mine."

Brooks rose to his feet. His eyes were fixed steadily, almost longingly upon Lord Arranmore's. His manner was not wholly free from nervousness.

"I am very much obliged to you, Lord Arranmore," he said. "I quite understand that you are making me the offer of a princely settlement out of the Arranmore estates to which I have no manner of claim. It is not possible for me to accept it."

There was a moment's silence. A great clock in the corner ticked noisily. A faint unusual colour stole into Lord Arranmore's cheeks.

"Accept it! I accord you no favour, I offer you no gift. The allowance is, I repeat, one which every Lord Kingston has drawn upon his marriage.

Perhaps I have spoken before it was necessary. You may have had no thoughts of anything of the sort?"

Brooks did not answer.

"I have noticed," Lord Arranmore continued in measured tones, "an intimacy between you and Lady Sybil Caroom, which suggested the idea to me. I look upon Lady Sybil as one of the most charming young gentlewomen of our time, and admirably suited in all respects to the position of the future Marchioness of Arranmore. I presume that as head of the family I am within my rights in so far expressing my opinion?"

"Marriage," Brooks said, huskily, "is not possible for me at present."

"Why not?"

"I cannot accept this money from you. The terms on which we are do not allow of it."

There was an ominous glitter in Lord Arranmore's eyes. He, too, rose to his feet, and remained facing Brooks, his hand upon the back of his chair.

"Are you serious? Do you mean that?"

"I do!" Brooks answered. Lord Arranmore pointed to the door.

"Then be off," he said, a note of passion at last quivering in his tone.

"Leave this room at once, and let me see as little of you in the future as possible. If Sybil cares for you, God help her! You are a damned obstinate young prig, sir. Be off!"

Brooks walked out of the club and into the street, his ears tingling and his cheeks aflame. The world seemed topsy-turvy. It was long indeed before he forgot those words, which seemed to come to him winged with a wonderful and curious force.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ADVICE OF MR. BULLSOM

At no time in his life was Brooks conscious of so profound a feeling of dissatisfaction with regard to himself, his work, and his judgment, as during the next few weeks. His friendship with Mary Scott, which had been a more pleasant thing than he had ever realized, seemed to him to be practically at an end, he had received a stinging rebuke from the one man in the world whose right to administer it he would have vigorously denied, and he was forced to admit to himself that his last few weeks had been spent in a fool's paradise, into which he ought never to have ventured. He had the feeling of having been pulled up sharply in the midst of a very delightful interlude--and the whole thing seemed to him to come as a warning against any deviation whatsoever from the life which he had marked out for himself. So, after a day of indecision and nerveless hesitation, he turned back once more to his work. Here, at any rate, he could find absorption.

He formed his Board--without figure-heads, wholly of workers. There was scarcely a name which any one had ever heard of before. He had his interview with the bishop, who was shocked at his views, and publicly pronounced his enterprise harmful and pauperizing, and Verity, with the names of the Board as a new weapon, came for him more vehemently than ever. Brooks, at last goaded into action, sent the paper to his solicitors and went down to Medchester to attend a dinner given to Mr.

Bullsom.

It was at Medchester that he recovered his spirits. He knew the place so well that it was easy for him to gauge and appreciate the altered state of affairs there. The centre of the town was swept clean at last of those throngs of weary-faced men and youths looking for a job, the factories were running full time-there seemed to his fancy to be even an added briskness in the faces and the footsteps of the hurrying crowds of people. Later on at the public dinner which he had come down to attend, he was amply assured as to the sudden wave of prosperity which was passing over the whole country. Mr. Bullsom, with an immense expanse of white shirt, a white waistcoat and a scarlet camellia in his button-hole, beamed and oozed amiability upon every one. Brooks he grasped by both hands with a full return to his old cordiality, indulgence in which he had rather avoided since he had been aware of the social gulf between them.

"Brooks," he said, "I owe this to you. It was your suggestion. And I don't think it's turned out so badly, eh? What do you think?"

"I think that you have found your proper sphere," Brooks answered, smiling. "I can't think why you ever needed me to suggest it to you."

"My boy, I can't either," Mr. Bullsom declared. "This is one of the proudest nights of my life. Do you know what we've done up there at Westminster, eh? We've given this old country a new lease of life. How they were all laughing at us up their sleeve, eh! Germans, and Frenchmen, and Yankees. It's a horse of another colour now. John Bull has found out how to protect himself. And, Brooks, my boy, it's been mentioned to-night, and I'm a proud man when I think of it. There were others who did the showy part of the work, of course, the speechmaking and the bill-framing and all that, but I was the first man to set the Protection snowball rolling. It wasn't much I had to say, but I said it. A glass of wine with you, Sir Henry? With pleasure, sir!

"I wonder how long it will last," Brooks' neighbour remarked, cynically.

"The manufacturers are like a lot of children with a new toy. What about the Colonies? What are they going to say about it?"

"We have no Colonies," Brooks answered, smiling. "You are only half an Imperialist. Don't you know that they have been incorporated in the British Empire?

"Hope they'll like it," his neighbour remarked, sardonically. "Plenty of glory and a good price to pay for it. What licks me is that every one seems to imagine that this Tariff Bill is going to give the working-classes a leg-up. To my mind it's the capitalist who's going to score by it."