Looking up, she happened to catch the cold, furtive glance with which he had listened, and kept her eye fixed on him curiously.

“Do you hate me so much as that?” she said with a long breath.  “Well,” frankly, “it must be intolerable to carry such a millstone about your neck as I am to you.  You know I could pull you down any minute I chose,” tossing her head and laughing maliciously.  “No matter how high you had climbed.  I often wonder, Pliny, why you do not rid yourself of me.  It could be easily done.”

The usually suave tone was harsh and hoarse as he began to speak.  He coughed, and carefully modulated his voice before he said politely, “Yes.  But it would involve exposure unless carefully managed.  That is certain damnation.  There is a chance of safety for the present in trusting to you.  You were always good-natured, Charlotte.  And,” turning his watery eye full on her, “you loved me once.”

“Possibly,” coolly.  “But last year’s loves are as tedious reading as last year’s newspapers.  Better trust my good-nature.  You show your shrewdness in that.  I don’t interfere with people.  The world uses me very well.  It’s a hogshead that gives the best of wine—­if you know how to tap it.”

“You’ve tapped it with a will.  You go through life perpetually drunk,” he thought as she ran lightly before him up the steps.  He habitually made such complacent moral reflections upon his companions to himself, and took spiritual comfort in them.

The hall was wide and sunny, made homelike by low seats and growing plants:  it was occupied by half a dozen committee-men, who were waiting impatiently to see Mr. Van Ness.  The princess seated herself, attentive, her head on one side like some bright-eyed tropical bird.

Van Ness, without even a glance toward her, took up his business of Christian financier.  “Do not go, I beg,” as the captain opened the inner door for Rhodes and the ladies to retire.  “Our affairs are conducted in the eyes of the public.  Sound integrity has no secrets to keep.  That is our pride.—­Ah, gentlemen?”

The captain was glad to stay.  Surely, Jane would be impressed with the vast influence of this good man.  Van Ness did not look at her once.  But he saw nobody but her, and spoke directly to her ear.

Asylums, workingmen’s homes, hospitals, in all of which he was a director, were brought up and dismissed with a few hopeful, earnest words.  The vast system of organized charities through which the kindly wealthy class touch the poor beneath them was opened.  Mrs. Wilde, a manager in many of them, joined in the discussion.

“What a useless creature I am!” thought Jane.  “But the money,” doggedly, “is mine, and I choose to give it to father if the whole world go hungry.”  She turned, however, from one representative of these asylums to the other with a baited look.  Was it this one or that whom she had robbed?

“Now, as to Temperance City—­our city?” demanded a puffy little man importantly.  “You are the fountain-head of information there.  We look to you, Mr. Van Ness.”