, "is not possible for me at present."

"Why not?"

"I cannot accept this money from you. The terms on which we are do not
allow of it."

There was an ominous glitter in Lord Arranmore's eyes. He, too, rose to
his feet, and remained facing Brooks, his hand upon the back of his
chair.

"Are you serious? Do you mean that?"

"I do!" Brooks answered. Lord Arranmore pointed to the door.

"Then be off," he said, a note of passion at last quivering in his tone.
"Leave this room at once, and let me see as little of you in the future
as possible. If Sybil cares for you, God help her! You are a damned
obstinate young prig, sir. Be off!"

Brooks walked out of the club and into the street, his ears tingling and
his cheeks aflame. The world seemed topsy-turvy. It was long indeed
before he forgot those words, which seemed to come to him winged with
a wonderful and curious force.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ADVICE OF MR. BULLSOM

At no time in his life was Brooks conscious of so profound a feeling of
dissatisfaction with regard to himself, his work, and his judgment, as
during the next few weeks. His friendship with Mary Scott, which had
been a more pleasant thing than he had ever realized, seemed to him to
be practically at an end, he had received a stinging rebuke from the one
man in the world whose right to administer it he would have vigorously
denied, and he was forced to admit to himself that his last few weeks
had been spent in a fool's paradise, into which he ought never to have
ventured. He had the feeling of having been pulled up sharply in the
midst of a very delightful interlude--and the whole thing seemed to him
to come as a warning against any deviation whatsoever from the life
which he had marked out for himself. So, after a day of indecision and
nerveless hesitation, he turned back once more to his work. Here, at
any rate, he could find absorption.

He formed his Board--without figure-heads, wholly of workers. There was
scarcely a name which any one had ever heard of before. He had his
interview with the bishop, who was shocked at his views, and publicly
pronounced his enterprise harmful and pauperizing, and Verity, with the
names of the Board as a new weapon, came for him more vehemently than
ever. Brooks, at last goaded into action, sent the paper to his
solicitors and went down to Medchester to attend a dinner given to Mr.
Bullsom.

It was at Medchester that he recovered his spirits. He knew the place
so