'Didn't I tell you about her? I thought I did. Oh, I met her first of all at Barlow's, just after we got back from the seaside. Rather an interesting girl. She's a daughter of Manton Rupert, the advertising agent. I want to get invited to their house; useful people, you know.'

'But is an advertising agent a gentleman?'

Jasper laughed.

'Do you think of him as a bill-poster? At all events he is enormously wealthy, and has a magnificent house at Chislehurst. The girl goes about with her stepmother. I call her a girl, but she must be nearly thirty, and Mrs Rupert looks only two or three years older. I had quite a long talk with her--Miss Rupert, I mean--last night. She told me she was going to stay next week with the Barlows, so I shall have a run out to Wimbledon one afternoon.'

Dora looked at him inquiringly.

'Just to see Miss Rupert?' she asked, meeting his eyes.

'To be sure. Why not?'

'Oh!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed his sister, as if the question did not concern her.

'She isn't exactly good-looking,' pursued Jasper, meditatively, with a quick glance at the listener, 'but fairly intellectual. Plays very well, and has a nice contralto voice; she sang that new thing of Tosti's--what do you call it? I thought her rather masculine when I first saw her, but the impression wears off when one knows her better. She rather takes to me, I fancy.'

'But--' began Dora, after a minute's silence.

'But what?' inquired her brother with an air of interest.

'I don't quite understand you.'

'In general, or with reference to some particular?'

'What right have you to go to places just to see this Miss Rupert?'

'What right?' He laughed. 'I am a young man with my way to make. I can't afford to lose any opportunity. If Miss Rupert is so good as to take an interest in me, I have no objection. She's old enough to make friends for herself.'

'Oh, then you consider her simply a friend?'

'I shall see how things go on.'

'But, pray, do you consider yourself perfectly free?' asked Dora, with some indignation.

'Why shouldn't I?'

'Then I think you have been behaving very strangely.'

Jasper saw that she was in earnest. He stroked the back of his head and smiled at the wall.

'With regard to Marian, you mean?'

'Of course I do.'

'But Marian understands me perfectly. I have never for a moment tried to make her think that--well, to put it plainly, that I was in love with her. In all our conversations it has been my one object to afford her insight into my character, and to explain my position. She has no excuse whatever for misinterpreting me. And I feel a.s.sured that she has done nothing of the kind.'

'Very well, if you feel satisfied with yourself--'

'But come now, Dora; what's all this about? You are Marian's friend, and, of course, I don't wish you to say a word about her.

But let me explain myself. I have occasionally walked part of the way home with Marian, when she and I have happened to go from here at the same time; now there was nothing whatever in our talk at such times that anyone mightn't have listened to. We are both intellectual people, and we talk in an intellectual way. You seem to have rather old-fashioned ideas--provincial ideas. A girl like Marian Yule claims the new privileges of woman; she would resent it if you supposed that she couldn't be friendly with a man without attributing "intentions" to him--to use the old word. We don't live in Wattleborough, where liberty is rendered impossible by the cackling of gossips.'

'No, but--'

'Well?'

'It seems to me rather strange, that's all. We had better not talk about it any more.'

'But I have only just begun to talk about it; I must try to make my position intelligible to you. Now, suppose--a quite impossible thing--that Marian inherited some twenty or thirty thousand pounds; I should forthwith ask her to be my wife.'

'Oh indeed!'

'I see no reason for sarcasm. It would be a most rational proceeding.

I like her very much; but to marry her (supposing she would have me) without money would he a gross absurdity, simply spoiling my career, and leading to all sorts of discontents.'

'No one would suggest that you should marry as things are.'

'No; but please to bear in mind that to obtain money somehow or other--and I see no other way than by marriage--is necessary to me, and that with as little delay as possible. I am not at all likely to get a big editorship for some years to come, and I don't feel disposed to make myself prematurely old by toiling for a few hundreds per annum in the meantime. Now all this I have frankly and fully explained to Marian. I dare say she suspects what I should do if she came into possession of money; there's no harm in that. But she knows perfectly well that, as things are, we remain intellectual friends.'

'Then listen to me, Jasper. If we hear that Marian gets nothing from her uncle, you had better behave honestly, and let her see that you haven't as much interest in her as before.'

'That would be brutality.'

'It would be honest.'

'Well, no, it wouldn't. Strictly speaking, my interest in Marian wouldn't suffer at all. I should know that we could be nothing but friends, that's all. Hitherto I haven't known what might come to pa.s.s; I don't know yet. So far from following your advice, I shall let Marian understand that, if anything, I am more her friend than ever, seeing that henceforth there can be no ambiguities.'

'I can only tell you that Maud would agree with me in what I have been saying.'

'Then both of you have distorted views.'

'I think not. It's you who are unprincipled.'

'My dear girl, haven't I been showing you that no man could be more above-board, more straightforward?'

'You have been talking nonsense, Jasper.'

'Nonsense? Oh, this female lack of logic! Then my argument has been utterly thrown away. Now that's one of the things I like in Miss Rupert; she can follow an argument and see consequences. And for that matter so can Marian. I only wish it were possible to refer this question to her.'

There was a tap at the door. Dora called 'Come in!' and Marian herself appeared.

'What an odd thing!' exclaimed Jasper, lowering his voice. 'I was that moment saying I wished it were possible to refer a question to you.'

Dora reddened, and stood in an embarra.s.sed att.i.tude.

'It was the old dispute whether women in general are capable of logic.

But pardon me, Miss Yule; I forget that you have been occupied with sad things since I last saw you.'