of an old and valued friend
like yourself would have special weight with her."

"You know nothing about it. Clever engineer as you are, you do not
understand the little wheels by which our great machine of society is
worked."

"True, Mrs. Leith Fairfax," he rejoined, echoing the cadence of her
sentence. "Educated as a mere mechanic, I am still a stranger to the
elegancies of life. I usually depend on Marian for direction; but since
you think that it would be injudicious to appeal to her in the present
instance----"

"Out of the question, Mr. Conolly."

"--I must trust to your guidance in the matter. What do you suggest?"

Mrs. Fairfax was about to reply, when the expression which she
habitually wore like a mask in society, wavered and broke. Her lip
trembled: her eyes filled with tears: she rose with a sniff that was
half a sob. When she spoke, her voice was sincere for the first time,
and at the sound of it Conolly's steely, hard manner melted, and his
inhuman self-possession vanished.

"You think," she said, "that I came here to make mischief. I did not.
Marian is nothing to me: she does not even like me; but I dont want to
see her ruin herself merely because she is too inexperienced to know
when she is well off. I have had to fight my way in London: and I know
what it is, and what the world is. She is not fit to take charge of
herself. Good-bye, Mr. Conolly: you are a great deal too young yourself
to know the danger, for all your cleverness. You may tell her that I
came here and gossipped against her, if you like. She will never speak
to me again; but if it saves her, I dont care. Good-bye."

"My dear Mrs. Fairfax," he said, with entire frankness, "I am now deeply
and sincerely obliged to you." And in proof that he was touched, he
kissed her hand with the ease and grace of a man who had been carefully
taught how to do it. Mrs. Fairfax recovered herself and almost blushed
as he went with her to the door, chatting easily about the weather and
the Addison Road trains.

She was not the last visitor that evening. She had hardly been fifteen
minutes gone when the Rev. George presented himself, and was conducted
to the laboratory, where he found Conolly, with his coat off, surrounded
by apparatus. The glowing fire, comfortable chairs, and preparations for
an evening meal, gladdened him more than the presence of his
brother-in-law, with whom he never felt quite at ease.

"You wont mind my fiddling with these mach