ason for this
expenditure?'

'I really can't say, Jasper.'

'That's ambiguous, you know. Perhaps it means you won't allow yourself
to say?'

'No, Maud doesn't tell me about things of that kind.'

He took opportunities of investigating the matter, with the result that
some ten days after he sought private colloquy with Maud herself. She
had asked his opinion of a little paper she was going to send to a
ladies' illustrated weekly, and he summoned her to his own room.

'I think this will do pretty well,' he said. 'There's rather too much
thought in it, perhaps. Suppose you knock out one or two of the less
obvious reflections, and substitute a wholesome commonplace? You'll have
a better chance, I assure you.'

'But I shall make it worthless.'

'No; you'll probably make it worth a guinea or so. You must remember
that the people who read women's papers are irritated, simply irritated,
by anything that isn't glaringly obvious. They hate an unusual
thought. The art of writing for such papers--indeed, for the public in
general--is to express vulgar thought and feeling in a way that flatters
the vulgar thinkers and feelers. Just abandon your mind to it, and then
let me see it again.'

Maud took up the manuscript and glanced over it with a contemptuous
smile. Having observed her for a moment, Jasper threw himself back in
the chair and said, as if casually:

'I am told that Mr Dolomore is becoming a great friend of yours.'

The girl's face changed. She drew herself up, and looked away towards
the window.

'I don't know that he is a "great" friend.'

'Still, he pays enough attention to you to excite remark.'

'Whose remark?'

'That of several people who go to Mrs Lane's.'

'I don't know any reason for it,' said Maud coldly.

'Look here, Maud, you don't mind if I give you a friendly warning?'

She kept silence, with a look of superiority to all monition.

'Dolomore,' pursued her brother, 'is all very well in his way, but
that way isn't yours. I believe he has a good deal of money, but he
has neither brains nor principle. There's no harm in your observing
the nature and habits of such individuals, but don't allow yourself to
forget that they are altogether beneath you.'

'There's no need whatever for you to teach me self-respect,' replied the
girl.

'I'm quite sure of that; but you are inexperienced. On the whole, I do
rather wish that you would go less frequently to Mrs Lane's.

It was rather an unfortunat