ure that I'm not too. Have I any chance against
Bob Broadley?"

She did not seem to take him seriously.

"They wouldn't look at Mr Broadley." (She was pleasantly punctilious
about all titles and courteous methods of reference or address.) "Janie
Iver's a great heiress."

"And what about me?" he insisted, as he lit his pipe and sat down
opposite her.

"You mean it, Harry?"

"There's no reason why I shouldn't marry, is there?"

"Why, you must marry, of course. But----"

"We can do the blue blood business enough for both."

"Yes, I didn't mean that."

"You mean--am I at all in love with her?"

"No, not quite. Oh, my dear Harry, I mean wouldn't you like to be in
love a little with somebody? You could do it after you marry, of course,
and you certainly will if you marry now, but it's not so--so
comfortable." She looked at him with a sort of pity: her feeling was
that he gave himself no holidays.

He sat silent a moment seeming to consider some picture which her
suggestion conjured up.

"No good waiting for that," was his conclusion. "Somehow if I married
and had children, it would seem to make everything more settled." His
great pre-occupation was on him again. "We could do with some more money
too," he added, "and, as I say, I'm inclined to like the girl."

"What's she like?"

"What you call a fine girl--tall--well made----"

"She'll be fat some day, I expect."

"Straight features, broadish face, dark, rather heavy brows--you know
the sort of thing."

"Oh, Harry, I hate all that!"

"I don't; I rather like it." He was smoking meditatively, and jerked out
what he had to say between the puffs. "I shouldn't like to mortgage
Blent," he went on a moment later.

"Mortgage Blent? What for?"

He raised a hand to ask to be heard out. "But I should like to feel that
I could at any moment lay my hand on a big lump of ready money--say
fifty, or even a hundred, thousand pounds. I should like to be able to
pull it out of my breeches' pocket and say, 'Take that and hold your
tongue!'" He looked at her to see if she followed what was in his mind.
"I think they'd take it," he ended. "I mean if things got as far as
that, you know."

"You mean the Gainsboroughs?"

"Yes. Oh, anybody else would be cheaper than that. Fifty thousand would
be better than a very doubtful case. But it would have to be done
directly--before a word was heard about it. I should like to live with
the check by me."

He spoke very simply, a