n worthy of you, I might
come to you and say--two and two are four--let us go into partnership.
But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even
have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other
things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever
heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be
that very common thing--a complete failure--and be worse off than even
you ever were, Mary Ann."

"Oh, Mr. Lancelot, I'm so sorry." And her eyes filled again with tears.

"Oh, don't be sorry for me. I'm a man. I dare say I shall pull through.
Just put me out of your mind, dear. Let all that happened at Baker's
Terrace be only a bad dream--a very bad dream, I am afraid I must call
it. Forget me, Mary Ann. Everything will help you to forget me, thank
Heaven; it'll be the best thing for you. Promise me now."

"Yessir . . . if you will promise me."

"Promise you what?"

"To do me a favour."

"Certainly, dear, if I can."

"You have the money, Mr. Lancelot, instead of me--I don't want it, and
then you could----"

"Now, now, Mary Ann," he interrupted, laughing nervously, "you're getting
foolish again, after talking so sensibly."

"Oh, but why not?" she said plaintively.

"It is impossible," he said curtly.

"Why is it impossible?" she persisted.

"Because----" he began, and then he realised with a start that they had
come back again to that same old mechanical series of questions--if only
in form.

"Because there is only one thing I could ever bring myself to ask you for
in this world," he said slowly.

"Yes; what is that?" she said flutteringly.

He laid his hand tenderly on her hair.

"Merely Mary Ann."

She leapt up: "Oh, Mr. Lancelot, take me, take me! You do love me! You
do love me!"

He bit his lip. "I am a fool," he said roughly. "Forget me. I ought
not to have said anything. I spoke only of what might be--in the dim
future--if the--chances and changes of life bring us together again--as
they never do. No! You were right, Mary Ann. It is best we should not
meet again. Remember your resolution last night."

"Yessir." Her submissive formula had a smack of sullenness, but she
regained her calm, swallowing the lump in her throat that made her
breathing difficult.

"Good-bye, then, Mary Ann," he said, taking her hard red hands in his.

"Good-bye, Mr. Lancelot." The tears she would not shed were in her
voice