“I see,” said Cleek, a trifle gloomily.  “So then it is possible that it will, eventually, be the young French lady and—­Paris, in future.  When, do you fancy?  Soon?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.  I haven’t quite made up my mind as yet which of the two it will be.  And then there’s the application to be sent afterwards.”

“Still, it will be one of the two certainly?”

“Oh, yes.  I shall have to earn my living in future, you know; so, naturally, of course—­” She gave her shoulder an eloquent upward movement, and let the rest go by default.

Cleek did not speak for a moment:  merely walked on beside her—­a ridge between his eyebrows and his lower lip sucked in; as if he were mentally debating upon something and was afraid he might speak incautiously.  But of a sudden: 

“Miss Lorne,” he said, in a curiously tense voice, “may I ask you something?  Let us say that you had set your heart upon obtaining one or the other of these two positions—­set it so entirely that life wouldn’t be worth a straw to you if you didn’t get it.  Let us say, too, that there was something you had done, something in your past which, if known, might utterly preclude the possibility of your obtaining what you wanted—­it is an absurd hypothesis, of course:  but let us use it for the sake of argument.  We will say you had done your best to live down that offensive ‘something’ done, and were still doing all that lay in your power to atone for it; that nobody but one person shared the knowledge of that ‘something’ with you, and upon his silence you could rely.  Now tell me:  would you feel justified in accepting the position upon which you had set your heart without confessing the thing; or would you feel in duty bound to speak, well knowing that it would in all human probability be the end of all your hopes?  I should like to have your opinion upon that point, please.”

“I can’t see that I or anybody else could have other than the one,” she replied.  “It is an age-old maxim, is it not, Mr. Cleek, that two wrongs cannot by any possibility constitute a right?  I should feel in duty bound, in honour bound, to speak, of course.  To do the other would be to obtain the position by fraud—­to steal it, as a thief steals things that he wants.  No sort of atonement is possible, is even worth the name, if it is backed up by deceit, Mr. Cleek.”

“Even though that deceit is the only thing that could give you your heart’s desire?  The only thing that could open the Gates of Heaven for you?”

“The ‘Gates of Heaven,’ as you put it, can never be opened with a lie, Mr. Cleek.  They might be opened by the very thing of which you speak—­confession.  I think I should take my chances upon that.  At any rate, if I failed, I should at least have preserved my self-respect and done more to merit what I wanted than if I had secured it by treachery.  Think of the boy you helped a little while ago.  How much respect will you have for him if he never lives up to his promise; never goes to Clarges Street at all?  Yet if he does live up to it, will he not be doubly worth the saving?  But please!” with a sudden change from seriousness to gaiety, “if I am to be led into sermonizing, might I not know what it is all about?  I shall be right, shall I not, in supposing that all this is merely the preface to something else?”