ial
underlings and hangers-on--was death to the "influence." It was an
insult to her glorious womanhood. Some people might even have objected
that such crass ignorance of the world he renounced detracted from the
merit of the renunciation. Her voice was very cold and distant as she
answered him. "What do you suppose I could do? If you mean slumming,
I've never been down a slum in my life." No, he didn't mean slumming
exactly. To tell the truth, he could not fancy Audrey mingling with the
brutal side of life. He would have shrunk from giving her work that he
committed without a pang to his deaconesses and sisters.

"Do you mean mothers' meetings then, and that sort of thing? I
_couldn't_."

No, he didn't mean mothers' meetings either. But he thought she might
like to come sometimes to their social evenings.

"Social evenings"--that was worse than all. He had plunged in his
nervousness to the lowermost bathos. Audrey saw that he looked puzzled
and disheartened. She crossed over to her writing-desk, wrote out a
cheque for five pounds, and gave it to him with the prettiest action in
the world. "I want you to take that for your poor people. I wish I could
help in some other way, but I can't. I am so sorry." The apology was
sweetness itself, but she had the air of having settled her account with
humanity--and him. He thanked her gravely and took his leave, reminding
her that whenever she needed his help, it would still be there. She
remained musing some time after he had gone.

He little guessed how nearly he had won the victory. Perhaps he would
have scorned any advantage gained by an appeal to her sex, though he had
conceded much to it--more than he well knew.

CHAPTER XIII

August was a miserable month for Katherine in the hot attic, hard at
work on her own pictures, and too often finishing the various orders for
black and white which Knowles had after all managed to put in Ted's way.
She could have stood the hard work if she had not been more than ever
worried on Ted's account. With her feminine instinct sharpened by
affection, she foresaw trouble at hand--complications which it would
never have entered into the boy's head to consider. For reasons of her
own Audrey was still keeping her engagement a secret. She was less
regular, too, in making appointments, fixing days for Ted to go over and
see her; and more often than not he missed her if he happened to call at
Chelsea Gardens of his own accord. At the sa