“No harm at all, and perhaps a great deal of good.  I say that I wish you nothing but well.  Suppose a gift of all the money I have would smooth your whole life before you, and make you the happy wife of some other man.  I would give it you gladly.  That kind of thing has often been said, when it meant nothing:  it isn’t so with me.  It has always been more pleasure to me to give than to receive.  No merit of mine; I have it from my father.  Make clear to me that you are to benefit by this money, and you shall have the cheque as soon as you please.”

“I shall benefit by it, because it will relieve me from a dreadful anxiety.”

“Or, in other words, will relieve someone else?”

“I can speak only of myself.  The kindness will be done to me.”

“I must know more than that.  Come now, we assume that there’s someone in the background.  A friend of yours, let us say.  I can’t Imagine why this friend of yours wants money, but so it is.  You don’t contradict me?”

Eve remained mute, her head bent.

“What about your friend and you in the future?  Are you bound to this friend in any irredeemable way?”

“No—­I am not,” she answered, with emotion.

“There’s nothing between you but—­let us call it mere friendship.”

“Nothing—­nothing!”

“So far, so good.”  He looked keenly into her face.  “But how about the future?”

“There will never be anything more—­there can’t be.”

“Let us say that you think so at present.  Perhaps I don’t feel quite so sure of it.  I say again, it’s nothing to me, unless I get drawn into it by you yourself.  I am not your guardian.  If I tell you to be careful, it’s an impertinence.  But the money; that’s another affair.  I won’t help you to misery.”

“You will be helping me out of misery!” Eve exclaimed.

“Yes, for the present.  I will make a bargain with you.”

She looked at him with startled eyes.

“You shall have your thirty-five pounds on condition that you go to live, for as long as I choose, in Paris.  You are to leave London in a day or two.  Patty shall go with you; her uncle doesn’t want her, and she seems to have quarrelled with the man she was engaged to.  The expenses are my affair.  I shall go to Paris myself, and be there while you are, but you need see no more of me than you like.  Those are the terms.”

“I can’t think you are serious,” said Eve.

“Then I’ll explain why I wish you to do this.  I’ve thought about you a great deal; in fact, since we first met, my chief occupation has been thinking about you.  And I have come to the conclusion that you are suffering from an illness, the result of years of hardship and misery.  We have agreed, you remember, that there are a good many points of resemblance between your life and mine, and perhaps between your character and mine.  Now I myself, when I escaped from Dudley, was thoroughly