o you consider yourself perfectly free?' asked Dora, with
some indignation.

'Why shouldn't I?'

'Then I think you have been behaving very strangely.'

Jasper saw that she was in earnest. He stroked the back of his head and
smiled at the wall.

'With regard to Marian, you mean?'

'Of course I do.'

'But Marian understands me perfectly. I have never for a moment tried
to make her think that--well, to put it plainly, that I was in love with
her. In all our conversations it has been my one object to afford her
insight into my character, and to explain my position. She has no excuse
whatever for misinterpreting me. And I feel assured that she has done
nothing of the kind.'

'Very well, if you feel satisfied with yourself--'

'But come now, Dora; what's all this about? You are Marian's friend,
and, of course, I don't wish you to say a word about her.

But let me explain myself. I have occasionally walked part of the way
home with Marian, when she and I have happened to go from here at the
same time; now there was nothing whatever in our talk at such times that
anyone mightn't have listened to. We are both intellectual people, and
we talk in an intellectual way. You seem to have rather old-fashioned
ideas--provincial ideas. A girl like Marian Yule claims the new
privileges of woman; she would resent it if you supposed that she
couldn't be friendly with a man without attributing "intentions" to
him--to use the old word. We don't live in Wattleborough, where liberty
is rendered impossible by the cackling of gossips.'

'No, but--'

'Well?'

'It seems to me rather strange, that's all. We had better not talk about
it any more.'

'But I have only just begun to talk about it; I must try to make
my position intelligible to you. Now, suppose--a quite impossible
thing--that Marian inherited some twenty or thirty thousand pounds; I
should forthwith ask her to be my wife.'

'Oh indeed!'

'I see no reason for sarcasm. It would be a most rational proceeding.
I like her very much; but to marry her (supposing she would have me)
without money would he a gross absurdity, simply spoiling my career, and
leading to all sorts of discontents.'

'No one would suggest that you should marry as things are.'

'No; but please to bear in mind that to obtain money somehow or
other--and I see no other way than by marriage--is necessary to me, and
that with as little delay as possible. I am not at all likely to get a
big editorship fo