t count for
something." He held out his hand.

Harz came quickly back and took it. Christian's gaze was never for a
moment withdrawn; she seemed trying to store up the sight of him within
her. The light darting through the half-closed shutters gave her eyes a
strange, bright intensity, and shone in the folds of her white dress like
the sheen of birds' wings.

Mr. Treffry glanced uneasily about him. "God knows I don't want anything
but her happiness," he said. "What is it to me if you'd murdered your
mother? It's her I'm thinking of."

"How can you tell what is happiness to her? You have your own ideas of
happiness--not hers, not mine. You can't dare to stop us, sir!"

"Dare?" said Mr. Treffry. "Her father gave her over to me when she was a
mite of a little thing; I've known her all her life. I've--I've loved
her--and you come here with your 'dare'!" His hand dragged at his beard,
and shook as though palsied.

A look of terror came into Christian's face.

"All right, Chris! I don't ask for quarter, and I don't give it!"

Harz made a gesture of despair.

"I've acted squarely by you, sir," Mr. Treffry went on, "I ask the same
of you. I ask you to wait, and come like an honest man, when you can
say, 'I see my way--here's this and that for her.' What makes this art
you talk of different from any other call in life? It doesn't alter
facts, or give you what other men have no right to expect. It doesn't
put grit into you, or keep your hands clean, or prove that two and two
make five."

Harz answered bitterly:

"You know as much of art as I know of money. If we live a thousand years
we shall never understand each other. I am doing what I feel is best for
both of us."

Mr. Treffry took hold of the painter's sleeve.

"I make you an offer," he said. "Your word not to see or write to her
for a year! Then, position or not, money or no money, if she'll have
you, I'll make it right for you."

"I could not take your money."

A kind of despair seemed suddenly to seize on Mr. Nicholas Treffry. He
rose, and stood towering over them.

"All my life--" he said; but something seemed to click deep down in his
throat, and he sank back in his seat.

"Go!" whispered Christian, "go!" But Mr. Treffry found his voice again:
"It's for the child to say. Well, Chris!"

Christian did not speak.

It was Harz who broke the silence. He pointed to Mr. Treffry.

"You know I can't tell you to come with--that, ther