the salary. You can't live on air, you know, and with the poor
attendances he gets now, I don't see how he can afford to pay much."

"I would work for very little," Shiel said. "I should be awfully sorry
to give up now. I wonder if you would miss me at all?"

"Of course I should!" Gladys retorted. "You have behaved admirably,
and I am most grateful to you."

"You needn't be grateful to me. I have never enjoyed anything half so
much as I have trying to help you. I am poor, penniless in fact, since
my uncle left me nothing, but supposing--supposing I were to get some
lucrative post, do you think--do you think there would ever be any
possibility of--"

"Of what?"

"Of your caring for me! I am terribly in love with you."

"I fear I must have given you encouragement," Gladys said. "I'm
awfully sorry. You see I never thought of this, and I don't know what
to say to you."

"Won't you give me a chance, just a chance?"

"But my father would never hear of it. Unfortunately he seems to be
prejudiced against you. Won't you wait a while, and then, if you are
still in the same mind, speak to me again in--say--a year. By that
time you will, no doubt, have made some sort of a position for
yourself."

"And in the meanwhile you will get engaged to some one else," Shiel
exclaimed.

"I don't think I shall," Gladys said. "Of course, I meet crowds of
men, but you see I am not the marrying sort."

"Do you think you would care for me just a bit?" Shiel asked eagerly.

"A tiny, tiny bit, perhaps," Gladys said, "but I'm not at all sure. I
can think of no one now but my father, so that if you value my good
opinion, or really want to prove your devotion to me, you must, for
the time being, devote yourself to him. Who knows--it may lie in your
power to do him some service."

"I don't see how," Shiel replied, somewhat despondingly. "But no
matter--after you, your father and your father's affairs shall be my
first consideration. You will let me see you sometimes, won't you?"

"Sometimes," Gladys laughed. "Good-bye! Don't make any mistakes
to-morrow. Your performance to-night was not as good as usual." And,
with this somewhat cruel remark, she stepped lightly into her motor,
and drove off.

Shiel now gave way to despair. There are few conditions in life so
utterly unenviable as penury and love--to be next door to starving,
and at the same time in love. Day after day Shiel, who was thus
afflicted, had revelled in Gladys's company,