“Beauty, of course, is a dazzling and dangerous thing,” Brand said; “for a man always wants to believe that fine eyes and a sweet voice have a sweet soul behind them.  And very often he finds behind them something in the shape of a soul that a dog or a cat would be ashamed to own.  But as for Natalie Lind, I don’t think one can be deceived.  She shows too much.  She vibrates too quickly—­too inadvertently—­to little chance touches.  I did suspect her, I will confess.  I thought she was hired to play the part of decoy.  But I had not seen her for ten minutes before I was convinced she was playing no part at all.”

“But goodness gracious, Brand, what are we coming to?” Lord Evelyn said, with a laugh.  “What!  We already believe in England, and patriotism, and the love of freedom?  And we are prepared to admit that there is one woman—­positively, in the world, one woman—­who is not a cheat and a selfish coquette?  Why, where are we to end?”

“I don’t think I said only one woman,” Brand replied, quite good-naturedly; and then he added, with a smile, “You ask where we are to end.  Suppose I were to accept your new religion, Evelyn?  Would that please you?  And would it please her, too?”

“Ah!” said his companion, looking up with a quick glance of pleasure.  But he would argue no more.

“Perhaps I have been too suspicious.  It is a habit; I have had to look after myself pretty much through the world; and I don’t overvalue the honesty of people I don’t know.  But when I once set my hand to the work, I am not likely to draw back.”

“You could be of so much more value to them than I can,” said Lord Evelyn, wistfully.  “I don’t suppose you spend more than half of your income.”

“Oh, as to that,” said Brand, at once, “that is a very different matter.  If they like to take myself and what I can do, well and good; money is a very different thing.”

His companion raised himself in his chair; and there was surprise on his face.

“How can you help them so well as with your money?” he cried.  “Why, it is the very thing they want most.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Brand, coldly.  “You see, Evelyn, my father was a business man; and I may have inherited a commercial way of looking at things.  If I were to give away a lot of money to unknown people, for unknown purposes, I should say that I was being duped, and that they were putting the money in their own pocket.”

“My dear fellow!” Lord Evelyn protested; “the need of money is most urgent.  There are printing-presses to be kept going; agents to be paid; police-spies to be bribed—­there is an enormous work to be done, and money must be spent.”

“All the same,” said Brand, who was invariably most resolved when he was most quiet in his manner, “I shall prefer not running the chance of being duped in that direction.  Besides, I am bound in honor not to do anything of the kind.  I can fling myself away—­this is my own lookout; and my life, or the way I spend it, is not of great consequence to me.  But my father’s property, if anything happens to me, ought to go intact to my sister’s boys, to whom, indeed, I have left it by will.  I will say to Lind, ‘Is it myself or my money that is wanted:  you must choose.’”