those Layards are
richer than Croesus."

"Yes," answered Stella with a curious little smile.

But to herself she did not smile; for, if Morris found his visitor a
bore, to Stella he was nothing short of an infliction, increased rather
than mitigated by numerous presents of hot-house fruit and flowers
offered to herself, and entailing, each of them, an expression of thanks
verbal or written. At first she treated the thing as a joke, till it
grew evident that her admirer was as much in earnest as his nature would
permit. Thereon, foreseeing eventualities, she became alarmed.

Unless some means could be found to stop him it was now clear to
Stella that Mr. Layard meant to propose to her, and as she had not the
slightest intention of accepting him this was an honour which she did
not seek. But she could find no sufficient means; hints, and even snubs,
only seemed to add fuel to the fire, and of a perpetual game of hide and
seek she grew weary.

So it came about that at last she shrugged her shoulders and left things
to take their chance, finding some consolation for her discomfort in
the knowledge that Miss Layard, convinced that the rector's daughter was
luring her inexperienced brother into an evil matrimonial net, could
in no wise restrain her rage and indignation. So openly did this lady
express her views, indeed, that at length a report of them reached even
Morris's inattentive ears, whereon he was at first very angry and then
burst out laughing. That a man like Stephen Layard should hope to marry
a woman like Stella Fregelius seemed to him so absurd as to be almost
unnatural. Yet when he came to think it over quietly he was constrained
to admit to himself that the match would have many advantages for the
young lady, whereof the first and foremost were that Stephen was very
rich, and although slangy and without education in its better sense, at
heart by no means a bad little fellow. So Morris shrugged his shoulders,
shut his eyes, continued to dispense luncheons and afternoon teas, and
though with an uneasy mind, like Stella herself, allowed things to take
their chance.

All this while, however, his own friendship with Stella grew apace,
enhanced as it was in no small degree by the fact that now her help in
his scientific operations had become most valuable. Indeed, it appeared
that he was destined to owe the final success of his instrument to the
assistance of women who, at the beginning, at any rate, knew littl