we have been leading this shifty life together,
we have never had any one so suitable to our
purposes as George Dallas"

"He is  certainly wonderfully amenable."

"Amenable? He is a good deal more than
that; he is devoted. You know whose doing
that is, Harry, and so do I. Why, when you
laid your hand on his shoulder I saw him shiver
like a leaf, and the first few words from you
stilled what I thought was going to be a heavy
storm."

She looked up anxiously into his face, but the
smile had returned to his lips, and his brow was
unclouded. Not perfectly satisfied, she suffered
her eyes to drop again.

"I know perfectly well," pursued Routh,
"that the manner in which Dallas has stuck to
us has been owing entirely to the influence you
have over him, and which is natural enough.
He is a bright young fellow, impressionable as
we all are——" again her eyes were raised to
his face, "—at his age; and though from the
scrapes he has got into, and his own natural
love of play (more developed in him than in any
other man I ever met), though these things
keep him down, he is innately a gentleman. You
are the only woman of refinement and education
to whose society he has access, and as, at the
same time, you have a sweet face and an
enormous power of will, it is not extraordinary
that he should be completely under your
influence."

"Don't you overrate that same influence,
Stewart?" she asked, with a faint smile.

"No man knows better how to appraise the
value of his own goods—and you are my goods,
are you not, Harry, and out and away, the best
of all my goods?  Not that that's saying much.
No; I understand these things, and I
understand you, and having perfect confidence and
trust in you, I stand by and watch the game."

"And you're never jealous, Stewart?" she
asked, with a half laugh, but with the old
expression of anxious interest in her eyes.

"Jealous, Harry? Not I, my love! I tell
you, I have perfect trust and confidence in you,
and I know your thorough devotion to our
affairs. Let us get back to what we were talking
about at first—what was it exactly?"

Her eyes had dropped again at the commencement
of his reply, but she raised them as he
finished speaking, and said, "We were discussing
the amount of George Dallas's usefulness
to us."

"Exactly. His usefulness is greater than it
seems. There is nothing so useful in a life
like ours as the outward semblance of position.
I don't mean the mere get up; that, most fools
can manage; but the certain something which
proclaims to his fellows and his inferiors that
a man has had education and been decently
bred. There are very few among our precious
acquaintances who could not win Dallas's coat
off his back, at cards, or billiards, or betting,
but there is not one whom I could present to
any young fellow of the smallest appreciation
whom I might pick up. Even if their frightful
appearance were not sufficiently against them
—and it is—they would say or do something in
the first few minutes which would awake
suspicion, whereas Dallas, even in his
poverty-stricken clothes of the last few weeks, looks
like a gentleman, and talks and behaves like
one."

"Yes," said Harriet, reflecting, "he certainly
does; and that's a great consideration, Stewart!"

"Incalculable! Besides, though he is a
thorough gambler at. heart, he has some other
visible profession. His 'connexion with the
press,' as he calls it, seems really to be a fact;
he could earn a decent salary if he stuck to it.
From a letter he showed me, I make out that
they seem to think well of him at the newspaper
office; and mind you, Harriet, he might
be uncommonly useful to us some day in getting
things kept out of the papers, or flying a few
rumours which would take effect in the money
market or at Tattersall's. Do you see all that,
Harry?"

"I see it," she replied; "I suppose you're
right."

"Right? Of course I am! George Dallas
is the best ally—and the cheapest—we have
ever had, and he must be kept with us."

"You harp upon that 'kept with us.' Are
you still so persuaded that he wishes to shake
us off?"

"I am. I feel convinced, from that little
outburst to-night, that he is touched by this
unexplained sacrifice on the part of his mother,
and that in his present frame of mind he
would give anything to send us adrift and get
back into decent life. I feel this so strongly,
Harriet," continued Routh, rising from his seat,
crossing to the mantelshelf, and taking a cigar,
"that I think even your influence would be
powerless to restrain him, unless——"

"Unless what? Why do you pause?" she
asked, looking up at him with, a clear steadfast
gaze.

"Unless," said Routh, slowly puffing at his
newly-lighted cigar, "unless we get a fresh
and a firm hold on him. He will pay that
hundred and forty pounds. Once paid, that
hold is gone, and with it goes our ally!"

"I see what you mean," said Harriet, after
a pause, with a short mirthless laugh. "He
must be what they call in the East
'compromised.' We are plague-stricken. George
Dallas must be seen to brush shoulders with
us. His garments must be known to have
touched ours! Then the uninfected will cast
him out, and he will be reduced to herd with
us!"

"You are figurative, Harry, but forcible:
you have hit my meaning exactly. But the
main point still remains—how is he to be
'compromised'?"

"it is impossible to settle that hurriedly," she
replied, pushing her hair back from her forehead.
"But it must be done effectually, and the
step which he is led to take, and which is to
bind him firmly to us, must be irrevocable.
Hush! Come in!"