down to the account of the glass) the face Mr. Waddington saw was still
the face of a handsome man, he formed a very favourable opinion of the
face Miss Madden had seen. Handsome, and if not in his first youth, then
still in his second. Experience is itself a fascination, and if a man
has any charm at all his second youth should be more charming, more
irresistibly fascinating than his first.

And the child had been conscious of him. She had betrayed uneasiness, a
sense of danger, when she had found herself alone with him. He recalled
her first tentative flight, her hesitation. He would have liked to have
kept her there with him a little longer, to have talked to her about his
League, to have tested by a few shrewd questions her ability.

Better not. Better not. The child was wise and right. Her wisdom and
rectitude were delicious to Mr. Waddington, still more so was the
thought that she had felt him to be dangerous.

He went back into his library and sat again in his chair and meditated:
This experiment of Fanny's now; he wondered how it would turn out,
especially if Fanny really wanted to adopt the girl, Frank Madden's
daughter. That impudent social comedian had been so offensive to Mr.
Waddington in his life-time that there was something alluring in the idea
of keeping his daughter now that he was dead, seeing the exquisite
little thing dependent on him for everything, for food and frocks and
pocket-money. But no doubt they had been wise in giving her the
secretaryship before committing themselves to the irrecoverable step;
thus testing her in a relation that could be easily terminated if by any
chance it proved embarrassing.

But the relation in itself was, as Mr. Waddington put it to himself, a