to be a night
person. They've no appearances to keep up. You see, what makes it so
difficult for the twilight people is that they _want_ to live in the
daylight, and it's too strong for them. All the night people whom they
know--and if you're twilight you know lots of 'em--come and drag them
back. _They_ don't care. They rather like to go right in among the
daylight folk and scare and shock them, and make them uncomfortable. You
_can't_ suffer in the same way when you've gone under altogether."

"But, Fay dear," Jan interposed, "you talk as though the twilight people
couldn't help it...."

"They can't--they truly can't."

"But surely there's right and wrong, straightness and crookedness, and
no one _need_ be crooked."

"People like you needn't--but everybody isn't strong like that. Hugo
says every man has his price, and every woman too--Peter says so, too."

"Then Peter ought to be ashamed of himself. Do you suppose _he_ has his
price?"

"No, not in that way. He'd think it silly to be pettifogging and
dishonest about money, or to go in for mad speculations run by shady
companies; but he wouldn't think it _extraordinary_ like you."

"I'm afraid my education has been neglected. A great many things seem
extraordinary to me."

"You think it funny I should be living in Peter's flat, waited on by
Peter's servants--but what else could I do?"

Jan smiled in the darkness. She saw where her niece had got "what
nelse?"

"Isn't it just a little--unusual?" she asked gently. "Is there no money
at all, Fay? What has become of all your own?"

"It's not all gone," Fay said eagerly. "I think there's nearly two
thousand pounds left, but Peter made me write home--that was at
Dariawarpur, before he came down here--and say no more was to be sent
out, not even if I wrote myself to ask for it--and _he_ wrote to Mr.
Davidson too----"

"I know somebody wrote. Mr. Davidson was very worried ... but what _can_
Hugo have done with eight thousand pounds in two years? Besides his
pay...."

"Eight thousand pounds doesn't go far when you've dealings with
money-lenders and mines in Peru--but _I_ don't understand it--don't ask
me. I believe he left me a little money--I don't know how much--at a
bank in Elphinstone Circle--but I haven't liked to write and find out,
lest it should be very little ... or none...."

"Mercy!" exclaimed Jan. "It surely would be better to know for certain."

"When you've lived in the twilight country as long