don't give up so
soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a
learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who declares we ought all to
live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young
man."

Helmsley rose from his chair with a slightly impatient gesture.

"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only
echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern
repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"

Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than
Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently
less active.

"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we
are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and
important affair than when we began our conversation."

Helmsley shrugged his shoulders.

"When I come back to town, we will go into the question again," he said.

"You are off at the end of the week?"

"Yes."

"Going abroad?"

"I--I think so."

The answer was given with a slight touch of hesitation.

"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving
to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a
vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had
turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French
window, was just about to enter the room beyond.

"Yes. It is Lucy's birthday."

"Ah! Miss Lucy Sorrel! How old is she?"

"Just twenty-one."

And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the
window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to
follow.

"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he
entered. "Now, why----"

"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley,
with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she
might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I
have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for
her parents or for any of her family connections. When I first took a
fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside
place on the Sussex coast,--I thought her a pretty little creature, and
have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets
and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are
suitable to her age and sex, I have no ot