.«
    Maud made a movement of indifference.
    »What has been putting you out?«
    »Things were rather stupid. Some people who were to have come didn't turn
up. And - well, it doesn't matter.«
    She rose and glanced at herself in the little oblong mirror over the
mantelpiece.
    »Did Jasper ever speak to you of a Miss Rupert?« asked Dora.
    »Not that I remember.«
    »What do you think? He told me in the calmest way that he didn't see why
Marian should think of him as anything but the most ordinary friend - said he
had never given her reason to think anything else.«
    »Indeed! And Miss Rupert is someone who has the honour of his preference?«
    »He says she is about thirty, and rather masculine, but a great heiress.
Jasper is shameful!«
    »What do you expect? I consider it is your duty to let Marian know
everything he says. Otherwise you help to deceive her. He has no sense of honour
in such things.«
    Dora was so impatient to let her brother have the news that she left the
house as soon as she had had tea on the chance of finding Jasper at home. She
had not gone a dozen yards before she encountered him in person.
    »I was afraid Marian might still be with you,« he said laughing. »I should
have asked the landlady. Well?«
    »We can't stand talking here. You had better come in.«
    He was in too much excitement to wait.
    »Just tell me. What has she?«
    Dora walked quickly towards the house, looking annoyed.
    »Nothing at all? Then what has her father?«
    »He has nothing,« replied his sister, »and she has five thousand pounds.«
    Jasper walked on with bent head. He said nothing more until he was upstairs
in the sitting-room, where Maud greeted him carelessly.
    »Mrs Reardon anything?«
    Dora informed him.
    »What?« he cried, incredulously. »Ten thousand? You don't say so!«
    He burst into uproarious laughter.
    »So Reardon is rescued from the slum and the clerk's desk! Well, I'm glad:
by Jove, I am. I should have liked it better if Marian had had the ten thousand
and he the five, but it's an excellent joke. Perhaps the next thing will be that
he'll refuse to have anything to do with his wife's money; that
