“I always liked and trusted you, Kate,” she said.  “I was sorry when our ways parted, and I’d be happy to have them joined again.  I see it’s to be a hazard of new fortune for you, and David and I will stand by.  I don’t know, of course, precisely what that may mean, but we’re yours to command.”

A key turned in the front door.

“There’s David now,” said his wife, her voice vibrating, and she summoned him.

* * * * *

David Fulham entered with something almost like violence, although the violence did not lie in his gestures.  It was rather in the manner in which his personality assailed those within the room.  Dark, with an attractive ugliness, arrogant, with restive and fathomless eyes, he seemed to unite the East and the West in his being.  Had his mother been a Jewess of pride and intellect, and his father an adventurous American of the superman type?  Kate, looking at him with fresh interest, found her thoughts leaping to the surmise.  She knew that he was, in a way, a great man—­a man with a growing greatness.  He had promulgated ideas so daring that his brother scientists were embarrassed to know where to place him.  There were those who thought of him as a brilliant charlatan; but the convincing intelligence and self-control of his glance repudiated that idea.  The Faust-like aspect of the man might lay him open to the suspicion of having too experimental and inquisitive a mind.  But he had, it would seem, no need for charlatanism.

He came forward swiftly and grasped Kate’s hand.

“I remember you quite well,” he said in his deep, vibratory tones.  “Are you here for graduate work?”

“No,” said Kate; “I’m not so humble.”

“Not so humble?” He showed his magnificent teeth in a flashing but somewhat satiric smile.

“I’m here for Life—­not for study.”

“Not ‘in for life,’ but ‘out’ for it,” he supplemented.  “That’s interesting.  What is Honora suggesting to you?  She’s sure to have a theory of what will be best.  Honora knows what will be best for almost everybody, but she sometimes has trouble in making others see it the same way.”

Honora seemed not to mind his chaffing.

“Yes,” she agreed, “I’ve already thought, but I haven’t had time to tell Kate.  Do you remember that Mrs. Goodrich said last night at dinner that her friend Miss Addams was looking about for some one to take the place of a young woman who was married the other day?  She was an officer of the Children’s Protective League, you remember.”

“Oh, that—­” broke in Fulham.  He turned toward Kate and looked her over from head to foot, till the girl felt a hot wave of indignation sweep over her.  But his glance was impersonal, apparently.  He paid no attention to her embarrassment.  He seemed merely to be getting at her qualities by the swiftest method.  “Well,” he said finally, “I dare say you’re right.  But—­” he hesitated.