nk far too much about the girl. Wouldn't do, you
know. I must marry someone with money, and a good deal of it.

That's a settled point with me.'

'Then you are not at all likely to meet them in London?'

'Not at all. And if I get allied with Fadge, no doubt Yule will involve
me in his savage feeling. You see how wisely I acted. I have a scent for
the prudent course.'

They talked for a long time, but again chiefly of Milvain's affairs.
Reardon, indeed, cared little to say anything more about his own. Talk
was mere vanity and vexation of spirit, for the spring of his volition
seemed to be broken, and, whatever resolve he might utter, he knew that
everything depended on influences he could not even foresee.

CHAPTER VII. MARIAN'S HOME

Three weeks after her return from the country--which took place a week
later than that of Jasper Milvain--Marian Yule was working one afternoon
at her usual place in the Museum Reading-room. It was three o'clock, and
with the interval of half an hour at midday, when she went away for a
cup of tea and a sandwich, she had been closely occupied since half-past
nine. Her task at present was to collect materials for a paper on
'French Authoresses of the Seventeenth Century,' the kind of thing
which her father supplied on stipulated terms for anonymous publication.
Marian was by this time almost able to complete such a piece of
manufacture herself and her father's share in it was limited to a few
hints and corrections. The greater part of the work by which Yule earned
his moderate income was anonymous: volumes and articles which bore his
signature dealt with much the same subjects as his unsigned matter, but
the writing was laboured with a conscientiousness unusual in men of his
position. The result, unhappily, was not correspondent with the efforts.
Alfred Yule had made a recognisable name among the critical writers of
the day; seeing him in the title-lists of a periodical, most people knew
what to expect, but not a few forbore the cutting open of the pages he
occupied. He was learned, copious, occasionally mordant in style; but
grace had been denied to him. He had of late begun to perceive the fact
that those passages of Marian's writing which were printed just as they
came from her pen had merit of a kind quite distinct from anything of
which he himself was capable, and it began to be a question with
him whether it would not be advantageous to let the girl sign these
compositions. A ma