sition which was so common, and which he, with his dislike of things
common, had always counted vulgar. Thus he was silent, and she also sat
silent, looking straight before her. At last, however, she spoke.

"Alexander's gone to the city," she said, "to see his stockbroker. The
stockbroker's a cousin of--ours." She smiled for a moment. "His name's
Mandeville. Since the party's out, we've got to see if we can make some
money."

His pity revived; whatever she deserved, it was not this horrible
common-place lot of wanting money; that sat so ill on his still stately,
no longer faultless, image of her.

"To make some money?" he repeated, half-scornful, half-puzzled.

"Oh, you're rich--you don't know. We spent a lot at Henstead. We must
have money: I spend a lot, so does Alexander." She glanced at him, and he
saw that something had nearly escaped her lips of which she repented. "Do
you ever feel," she went on, apparently by way of amendment, "as if you
might be dishonest--under stress of circumstances, you know?"

"I suppose I might. I've never thought about it."

"So dishonest as--as to get into trouble and be sent to prison and so
on?"

"Oh, I should hope to be skilful enough to avoid that," he laughed.
"Fools ought never to be dishonest; so they invented the 'best policy'
proverb to keep themselves straight."

May nodded. "That's it, I think," she said, and fell into silence again.
This time he spoke.

"I don't like your wanting money," he said in a low voice.

"No, I know," she smiled. "It's not like what you've always chosen to
think I'm like. I ought to live in gilded halls and scatter largesse,
oughtn't I?" She laughed a little bitterly. "Perhaps I will, if cousin
Mandeville does his duty."

"Meanwhile you feel the temptation to dishonesty?" He paused, but then
went on deliberately, "Or, to follow your rule of complete
identification, shall I say 'we feel a temptation to dishonesty, do we?'"

"Oh, but we should be clever enough not to be found out, shouldn't we?"

"I think you would."

"You've not half such good reason to think it as I have." She rose,
walked to the hearth-rug, and stood facing the grate, her back turned to
him. She seemed to him to be looking at a photograph which he noticed now
for the first time on the mantelpiece, the picture of a stout elderly man
with large clean-shaven face and an expression of tolerant shrewdness.
Marchmont moved close to her shoulder and looked also. Perceiving