The spacious barns and
rickyards of the Church Farm were just visible on the right. In less
than five minutes more, at their present pace, the horses would reach
the first park gate. The young man felt he must give himself time. He
quieted the horses down into a walk.

"If I were your brother, Helen, I should save you all these sordid
money worries as a matter of course. You have no brother--so, don't you
see, I come next. It's a perfectly obvious arrangement. Just let me be
your banker," he said.

Madame de Vallorbes shut her pretty teeth together. She could have
danced, she could have sung aloud for very gaiety of heart. She had not
anticipated this turn to the situation; but it was a delicious one. It
had great practical merits. Her brain worked rapidly. Immediately those
practical merits ranged themselves before her in detail. But she would
play with it a little--both diplomacy and good taste, in which last she
was by no means deficient, required that.

"Ah! you forget, dear Richard," she said, "in your friendly zeal you
forget that, in our rank of life, there is one thing a woman cannot
accept from a man. To take money is to lay yourself open to slanderous
tongues, is to court scandal. Sooner or later it is known, the fact
leaks out. And however innocent the intention, however noble and honest
the giving, however grateful and honest the receiving, the world puts
but one construction upon such a transaction."

"The world's beastly evil-minded then," Richard said.

"So it is. But that is no news, Dickie dear," Madame de Vallorbes
answered. "Nor is it exactly to the point."

Inwardly she trembled a little. What if she had headed him off too
cleverly, and he should regard her argument as convincing, her refusal
as final? Her fears were by no means lessened by the young man's
protracted silence.

"No, I don't agree," he said at last. "I suppose there are always risks
to be run in securing anything at all worth securing, and it seems to
me, if you look at it all round, the risks in this case are very
slight. Only you--and M. de Vallorbes need know. I suppose he must. But
then, if you will pardon my saying so, after what you have told me I
can't imagine he is the sort of person who is likely to object very
much to an arrangement by which he would benefit, at least indirectly.
As for the world,"--Richard ceased to contemplate his horses. He tried
to speak lightly, while his eyes sought that dimly seen face at his