cheapest price at which they might be had
in the market. If marriage were necessary, so be it, but it might
be that the young lady would not be so exigeant. It was probably
the expression of some such feelings in the early days of their
acquaintance which had made him so odious to her. Then Frank Jones
had come forward; and like any good honest girl, in a position so
public, she had at once let the fact of Mr. Jones be made known, so
as to protect her. But it had not protected her, and Mr. Moss had
been doubly odious. Then, by degrees, he had become aware of the
value of her voice, and he perceived the charms that there were in
what he pictured to himself as a professional partnership as well as
a marriage. Various ideas floated through his mind, down even to the
creation of fresh names, grand married names, for his wife. And if
she could be got to see it in the light he saw it, what a stroke of
business they might do! He was aware that she expressed personal
dislike to him; but he did not think much of that. He did not in
the least understand the nature of such dislike as she exhibited.
He thought himself to be a very good-looking man. He was one of a
profession to which she also belonged. He had no idea that he was not
a gentleman but that she was a lady. He did not know that there were
such things. Madame Socani told him that this young woman was already
married to Mr. Jones, but had left that gentleman because he had no
money. He did not believe this; but in any case he would be willing
to risk it. The peril would be hers and not his. It was his object
to establish the partnership, and he did not even yet see any fatal
impediment to it.

This lord who had been trapped by her beauty, by that and by her
theatrical standing, was an impediment, but could be removed. He had
known Lord Castlewell to be in love with a dozen singers, partly
because he thought himself to be a judge of music, and partly simply
because he had liked their looks. The lord had now taken a fancy to
Miss O'Mahony, and had begun by lending her money. That the father
should take the money instead of the daughter, was quite natural
to his thinking. But he might still succeed in looking after Miss
O'Mahony, and rescuing the singer from the lord. By keeping a close
watch on her he must make it impossible for the lord to hold her.
Therefore, when he went away, leaving the lord and the singer
together, he thought that for the present he had got the bette