I'm enjoying myself," he answered, lightly, "and I don't care to be
out of touch with it all."

"You enjoy contrasts," she remarked. "I saw your name in the paper this
morning as one of Lady Caroom's guests last night."

He nodded.

"Yes, Lady Caroom has been awfully good to me, and I seem to have got to
know a lot of pleasant people in an incredulously short time."

"You are a curious mixture," she said, looking at him thoughtfully.

"Of what?" he asked, passing his cup for some more tea.

"Of wonderful self-devotion," she answered, "and a genuine and natural
love of enjoyment. After all, you are only a boy."

"I fancy," he remarked, smiling, "that my years exceed yours.

"As a matter of fact they don't," she answered, "but I was not thinking
of years, I was thinking of disposition. You have set going the
greatest charitable scheme of the generation, and yet you are so young,
so very young."

He laughed a little uneasily. In some vague way he felt that he had
displeased her.

"I never pretended," he said, "that I did not enjoy life, that I was not
fond of its pleasures. It was only while my work was insecure that I
made a recluse of myself. You, too," he said, "it is time that you
slackened a little. Come, take an evening off and we will dine
somewhere and go to the theatre." How delightful it sounded. She felt
a warm rush of pleasure at the thought. They would want her badly at
Stepney, but "This evening?" she asked.

"Yes. No, hang it, it can't be this evening. I'm dining with the
Carooms--nor to-morrow evening. Say Thursday evening, will you?"

Something seemed suddenly to chill her momentary gush of happiness.

"Well," she said, "I think not just yet. We have several fresh girls,
you know--it is a bad time to be away. Perhaps you will ask me later
on."

He laughed softly.

"What a funny girl you are, Mary. You'd really rather stew in that hot
room, I believe, than go anywhere to enjoy yourself. Such women as you
ought to be canonized. You are saints even in this life. What can be
done for you in the next?"

Mary bit her lip hard, and she bent low over the tea-cups. In another
moment she felt that her self-control must go. Fortunately he drifted
away from the subject.

"Very soon," he said, "we must all have a serious talk about the future.
The management is getting too big for me. I think there should be a
council elected--something of the sort must be done, and soon."

"That," she remarked,