director of the laboratories at five thousand a year, with a fund of ten
thousand to draw upon. You to be employed as secretary and treasurer at
fifteen hundred a year. I will take the paid-up stock, and your father
and you will have the privilege of buying it back at par within five
years. Do you follow me?"

"I think I understand," was her unexpected reply. Her replies were
usually unexpected, like the expressions of her face and figure; she was
continually comprehending where one would have said she would not, and
not comprehending where it seemed absurd that she should not. "Yes, I
understand. . . . What else?"

"Nothing else."

She looked intently at him, and her eyes seemed to be reading his soul
to the bottom.

"Nothing else," he repeated.

"No obligation--for money--or--for anything?"

"No obligation. A hope perhaps." He was smiling with the gayest good
humor. "But not the kind of hope that ever becomes a disagreeable demand
for payment."

She seated herself, her hands in her lap, her eyes down--a lovely
picture of pensive repose. He waited patiently, feasting his senses upon
her delicate, aromatic loveliness. At last she said:

"I accept."