the absurd indefensible idea, of its similarity to begging was precisely what troubled her as the moment approached for setting forth.  She pondered, too, upon the intolerable fact that such a request as she was about to prefer to Uncle Meshach was a tacit admission that John, with all his ostentations, had at last come to the end of the tether.  She felt that she was a living part of John’s meretriciousness.  She had the fancy that she should have dressed for the occasion in rusty black.  Was it not somehow shameful that she, a suppliant for financial aid, should outrage the ugly modesty of the little parlour in Church Street by the arrogant and expensive perfection of her beautiful skirt and street attire?

Moreover, she would fail.

The morning was fine, and with infantile pusillanimity she began to hope that Uncle Meshach would be taking his walks abroad.  In order to give him every chance of being out she delayed her departure, upon one domestic excuse or another, for quite half an hour.  ‘How silly I am!’ she reflected.  But she could not help it, and when she had started down the hill towards Bursley she felt sick.  She had a suspicion that her feet might of their own accord turn into a by-road and lead her away from Uncle Meshach’s.  ‘I shall never get there!’ she exclaimed.  She called at the fishmonger’s in Oldcastle Street, and was delighted because the shop was full of customers and she had to wait.  At last she was crossing St. Luke’s Square and could distinguish Uncle Meshach’s doorway with its antique fanlight.  She wished to stop, to turn back, to run, but her traitorous feet were inexorable.  They carried her an unwilling victim to the house.  Uncle Meshach, by some strange accident, was standing at the window and saw her.  ‘Ah!’ she thought, ’if he had not been at the window, if he had not caught sight of me, I should have walked past!’ And that chance of escape seemed like a lost bliss.

Uncle Meshach himself opened the door.

‘Come in, lass,’ he said, looking her up and down through his glasses.  ’You’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen since I saw ye last.  Your aunt’s out, with the servant too; and I’m left here same as a dog on the chain.  That’s how they leave me.’

She was thankful that Aunt Hannah was out:  that made the affair simpler.

‘Well, uncle,’ she said, ’I haven’t seen you since you came back from the Isle of Man, have I?’

Some inspiration lent her a courage which rose far beyond embarrassment.  She saw at once that the old man was enchanted to have her in the house alone, and flattered by the apparatus of feminine elegance which she always displayed for him at its fullest.  These two had a sort of cult for each other, a secret sympathy, none the less sincere because it seldom found expression.  His pale blue eyes, warmed by her presence, said:  ’I’m an old man, and I’ve seen the world, and I keep a few of my ideas to myself.  But you know that no one understands a pretty woman better than I do.  A glance is enough.’  And in reply to this challenge she gave the rein to her profoundest instincts.  She played the simple feminine to his masculine.  She dared to be the eternal beauty who rules men, and will ever rule them, they know not why.