ending to smile. Mr. Kane at once
startled and steadied her. He made her feel vaguely ashamed of herself,
and he made her feel sorry for herself, too, so that, funny as he was,
his effect upon her was to soften and to calm her. Her temper felt less
bad and her nerves less on edge.

'You are very kind,' she said, after a little while. 'It is very good of
you to have thought about me like that. And you do think, at all events,
that I am half alive. You think I have wants, even if I have no
purposes.'

'Yes, that's it. Wants, not purposes; though what they are I can't find
out.'

She was willing to satisfy his curiosity. 'What I want is money.'

'Well, but what do you want to do with money?' Franklin inquired,
receiving the sordid avowal without a blink.

'I really don't know,' said Helen; 'to use what you call my power, I
suppose.'

'How would you use it? You haven't trained yourself for any use of
it--except enjoyment--as far as I can see.'

'I think I could spend money well. I'd give the people I liked a good
time.'

'You'd waste their time, and yours, you mean. Not that I object to the
spending of money--if it's in the right way.'

'I think I could find the right way, if I had it.' She was speaking with
quite the seriousness she had disowned. 'I hate injustice, and I hate
ugliness. I think I could make things nicer if I had money.'

Franklin now was silent for some time, considering her narrowly, and
since she had now looked down from the branches and back at him, their
eyes met in a long encounter. 'Yes,' he said at length, 'you'd be all
right--if only you weren't so wrong. If only you had a purpose--a
purpose directed towards the just and the beautiful; if only instead of
waiting for means to turn up, you'd created means yourself; if only
you'd kept yourself disciplined and steady of aim by some sort of hard
work, you'd be all right.'

Helen, extended in her chair, an embodiment of lovely aimlessness, kept
her eyes fixed on him. 'But what work can I do?' she asked. She was well
aware that Mr. Kane could have no practical suggestions for her case,
yet she wanted to show him that she recognised it as a case, she wanted
to show him that she was grateful, and she was curious besides to hear
what he would suggest. 'What am I fit for? I couldn't earn a penny if I
tried. I was never taught anything.'

But Mr. Kane was ready for her, as he had been ready for Jim Betts.
'It's not a question of earning that I m