diplomatic
character. I have been trying to acquire it ever since.

'But why?'

'It's one of the essentials of success in any kind of public life. And
I mean to succeed, you know. I feel that I am one of the men who do
succeed. But I beg your pardon; you asked me a question. Really, I was
only going to say of Reardon what I had said before: that he hasn't the
tact requisite for acquiring popularity.'

'Then I may hope that it isn't his marriage with my cousin which has
proved a fatal misfortune?'

'In no case,' replied Milvain, averting his look, 'would he have used
his advantages.'

'And now? Do you think he has but poor prospects?'

'I wish I could see any chance of his being estimated at his right
value. It's very hard to say what is before him.'

'I knew my cousin Amy when we were children,' said Marian, presently.
'She gave promise of beauty.'

'Yes, she is beautiful.'

'And--the kind of woman to be of help to such a husband?'

'I hardly know how to answer, Miss Yule,' said Jasper, looking frankly
at her. 'Perhaps I had better say that it's unfortunate they are poor.'

Marian cast down her eyes.

'To whom isn't it a misfortune?' pursued her companion. 'Poverty is the
root of all social ills; its existence accounts even for the ills that
arise from wealth. The poor man is a man labouring in fetters. I declare
there is no word in our language which sounds so hideous to me as
"Poverty."'

Shortly after this they came to the bridge over the railway line. Jasper
looked at his watch.

'Will you indulge me in a piece of childishness?' he said. 'In less than
five minutes a London express goes by; I have often watched it here, and
it amuses me. Would it weary you to wait?'

'I should like to,' she replied with a laugh.

The line ran along a deep cutting, from either side of which grew hazel
bushes and a few larger trees. Leaning upon the parapet of the bridge,
Jasper kept his eye in the westward direction, where the gleaming rails
were visible for more than a mile. Suddenly he raised his finger.

'You hear?'

Marian had just caught the far-off sound of the train. She looked
eagerly, and in a few moments saw it approaching. The front of the
engine blackened nearer and nearer, coming on with dread force and
speed. A blinding rush, and there burst against the bridge a great
volley of sunlit steam. Milvain and his companion ran to the opposite
parapet, but already the whole train had emerged, and in a fe