“That,” she remarked, “is what Mr. Lavilette says, isn’t it?”

He looked at her with twinkling eyes.

“Oh, you needn’t think I’m being scared into it,” he answered.  “All the same, Lavvy’s right enough.  No one man has the right to accept large subscriptions and not let the public into his confidence.”

“Lavilette doesn’t believe in our anonymous subscriptions, does he?” she asked.

“No!  He’s rather impudent about that, isn’t he?  I suppose I ought really to set him right.  I should have done so before, but he went about it in such an offensive manner.  Well, to go on with what I was saying.  You will come on the council, Mary?”

“I?  Oh, surely not!”

“You will!  And, what is more, I am going to split all the branches up into divisions, and appoint superintendents and manageresses, at a reasonable salary.  And you,” he concluded, “are going to be one of the latter.”

She shook her head firmly.

“No!  I must remain my own mistress.”

“Why not?  I want to allot to you the work where you can do most good.  You know more about it than any one.  There is no one half so suitable.  I want you to throw up your other work come into this altogether, be my right hand, and let me feel that I have one person on the council whom I can rely upon.”

She was silent for a moment.  She leaned back in her chair, but even in the semi-obscurity the extreme pallor of her face troubled him.

“You must remember, too,” he said, “that the work will not be so hard as now.  Lately you have given us too much of your time.  Indeed, I am not sure that it is not you who need a holiday more than I.”

She raised her eyes.

“This is—­what you came to say to me?”

“Yes.  I was anxious to get your promise.”

There was another short silence.  Then she spoke in dull even tones.

“I must think it over.  You want my whole time, and you want to pay me for it.”

“Yes.  It is only reasonable, and we can afford it.  I should draw a salary myself if I had not a little of my own.”

She raised her eyes once more to his mercilessly, and drew a quick little breath.  Yes, it was there written in his face—­the blank utter indifference of good-fellowship.  It was all that he had come to ask her, it was all that he would ever ask her.  Suddenly she felt her heart throbbing in quick short beats-her cheeks burned.  They were alone—­even her little maid had gone out.  Why was he so miserably indifferent?  She stumbled to her feet, and suddenly stooping down laid her burning cheeks against his.

“Kingston,” she said, “you are so cruel—­and I am so lonely.  Can’t you see that I am miserable?  Kiss me!”

Brooks sat petrified, utterly amazed at this self-yielding on the part of the last woman in this world whom he would ever have thought capable of anything of the sort.

“Kiss me—­at once.”