people who think they would have had plenty of money if it hadn't been
for me; but that doesn't prove they're right."

"In any case I'm glad she has it."

"That's because you're a very foolish little woman, as I told you when
you came to me three years ago. I said then that you'd be sorry for it
some day--"

"But I'm not."

"Tut! tut! Don't tell me! Can't I see with my own eyes? No woman could
lose her good looks as you've done and not know she's made a mistake.
How old are you now?"

"I'm twenty-seven."

"Dear me! dear me! You look forty."

"I feel eighty."

"Yes; I dare say you do. Any one who's got into so many scrapes as you
have must feel the burden of time. I don't think I ever saw a young
woman make such poor use of her opportunities. Why didn't you marry
Derek Pruyn?"

Diane kept herself quite still, her needle arrested half-way through its
stitch. She took time to reflect that it was useless to feel annoyed at
anything he might say, and when she formed her answer it was in the
spirit of meeting him in his own vein.

"What makes you think I ever had the chance?"

"Because I gave it to you myself."

"You, Mr. van Tromp?"

"Yes; me. I did all that wire-pulling when you first came to New York;
and I did it just so that you might catch him."

"Oh?"

"I did," he declared, proudly. "And if you had been the woman I took you
for, you could have had him."

"But suppose I--didn't want him?"

"Oh, don't tell me that," he said, pityingly. "Why shouldn't you want
him?--just as much as he'd want you?"

"Well, I'll put it that way if you like. Suppose he didn't want me?"

"Then the more fool he. I picked you out for him on purpose."

"May I ask why?"

"Certainly. I saw he was getting on in life, and, as he'd been a good
many years a widower, I imagined he'd had some difficulty in getting any
one to have him. If he's good-looking, he's not what you'd call very
bright; and he's got a temper like--well, I won't say what. I'd pity the
woman who got him, that's all; and so--"

"And so you thought you'd pity me."

"I did pity you as it was. It seemed to me you couldn't be worse off,
not even if you married Derek Pruyn."

"It was certainly good of you to give me the opportunity; and if I had
only known--"

"You would have let it slip through your fingers just the same. You're
one of the young women who will always stand in their own light. I dare
say, now, that if I told you I was willing to marry