row." He seized the look in Mr. Ewins's eye and added: "It would do her good and I want a match.” Mr. Ewins didn't seem to agree at all. He glared as he might have done at any interloper.

"Golf-what the devil does she want wi' golf. Do 'er good . . . Good be damned! She's summat better to do than go muckin' round that 'Ere,"

he handed the cheque so roughly that Lance felt inclined to tear it up, snatch the books and go. But, after all, there were other people to be considered, and irate fathers-or fathers-in-law in prospectuwere accounted temperish.

"Thanks," he said coldly. "So that's off, Dolly." And as he went away he felt in a humour to do all kinds of mad things. He was angry that he had been humiliated, he felt his pity (mingled with admiration and almost equalling love) rising to very great heights over Dolly, in that home, with that kind of paternal geniality and generosity; and the rest was vague, wild, seething, unlistable emotion.

But he had not got a hundred yards from the door when he met two young men he knew. One was Richards, a steady young chap who was an engineer at Ewins and Tugwell's, and the other was David Ewins. Richards was sober: David Ewins was not.

Richards nodded and smiled: he was evidently playing the part of the good Samaritan (though this is not meant to suggest that the man who fell among thieves was drunk).

David Ewins caught sight of Lance and stopped. "'Lo, Lance-owar? . . . Dad in?"

"Yes, he's in."

"Allusis-ole devil . . . Lito fightim. . . givim

Lessing.

وو

He began in an awful key: "Be it ever so. He burst into loud and cracked laughter. This was Dolly's brother.

"Can you manage?" said Lance. "Yes," said Richards.

"Manage-'f course, manage. Amalright.. givimell 'f says anythin' t' me. I'm not drunk, L'nce not drunk... bin smokin' t'much

He sang again: "Les all g'down t' Strand.. 'S all right, Lance. . . goo-sort . . . 'slong says anythin' t'me I'll givimell . . . I'm not drunk tha' las' cigar. . . won't smoke 'gain . . .'

When Lance had gone from the house Ewins said to Dolly:

"What d'you want to encourage him for? The rogue's only after your money."

Dolly said nothing and the silence resumed its part in the family circle.

CHAPTER XI

A NEW SOCIETY-AND OBJECT

LANCE walked home with a shaking head and a

big, swollen heart. What a home!
What a home! What par-

ents! What chance had a girl of happiness when the mother seemed to have the vitality of a live cod-fish and the father had about as much loving tenderness as you could find in a dynamo. Lance was a little extravagant in his similes, but that was pardonable under the circumstances.

"Poor Dolly!" and again and again "Poor Dolly!" She ought not to be in such an atmosphere . . . playing Patience-what irony! What patience! The father who swore at healthy pleasure and the mother who said "H'm" if you suggested something agreeable for her daughter.

And Lance felt so little powerful.

You can't go

to a father and say: "Look here, you must be a different man and behave otherwise to your daughter." It wouldn't be much good going to Mr. Ewins and saying that. He would stare at you for one brief moment and then tell you to go to Oldham or some other place quite outside the confines of Lancashire -Sometimes placed genially in Yorkshire by Lancashire folk when the two Roses meet at Old Trafford. And if you said anything to Mrs. Ewins, she would only say "H'm" and wonder what you were bothering about.

Lance squirmed and ground his teeth and felt like the Knight before the Castle where the imprisoned damsel lay, the portcullis down, the bridge up, faces grinning on the bastion, lead boiling in full view and he, the attacker, armed with just a sword and without followers.

The spirit was right. Wrongs should not exist. There are wrongs being committed by pig-headed, cold-hearted, stupid-feeling people that might very properly earn their perpetrators some punishment, but then society isn't organised to that end. We have to trust to virtues and if they aren't there the case is bad. Hard, cold, selfish parents can stifle their children and receive the blessing of the Church: so long as they don't beat them too hard, or starve their bodies (feelings otherwise don't count), there is nothing to be said by outsiders that can do any good. Perhaps it is as well, for there are a great number of meddlers and orderers of other people's lives on the face of the earth. And yet it is bad.

To Lance, with the case before him, it was awful. He did so want to succour Dolly. And yet at the great thing he hesitated: he almost began to fear he did not love her as he wished to love. She moved him, but she did not thrill him. Love justifies marriage, even if the loved one is not of great value, but pity does not. There is more in marriage than the release of a lady in distress. The idea came to him again and again, and sometimes he tried to persuade himself he really did love Dolly. He would think of her dimples, of her delicate hands, of her nice soft voice, and for a little while work up a fine emotion. But somehow he felt it wasn't the great height. Comparatives in some things are not enough: you must

have superlatives. That is, with some people, of course, and Lance was one of them. There are quite numbers of folk who can take second bests with a fine equanimity and joy: it seems almost as if they never had a best. But for those who feel deeply and strongly the difference is too big, the gulf too wide. Between liking and pity on one side and love on the other, there is whole world between for some.

So Lance was mostly outraged to-night. Had he been in love he would have said, "Well, this ends it. My princess goes out of the Castle at all costs"-that is, if the Knight was worth salt. But Lance said, "Isn't it a shame, a brutal shame? Aren't they a pair of carrion, et cetera, et cetera." All very troublesome for his soul in a way, and giving him none too radiant an expression when he reached home.

His mother noticed the look on his face and was not sure whether to be glad or sorry.

Mr. Harvey said: "Well, Lance, got the money out of old Fagin for the 'Oliver Twist' ?"

"Yes, father," and Lance handed over the cheque. "You don't look very jolly over it-what's the matter? Was the merry miser not satisfied?" "Yes, but. he is a pig, isn't he?"

"Ho! Ho! A pig, eh? Why, Lance?”

"The way he goes on to Dolly." And Lance let himself go. What a shame it was! And he detailed the scene.

"So you wanted to take Dolly to golf and he said none of that in his house, eh? You mustn't mind, my boy. Cousin Thomas would slam the door in the face of Jesus Christ-and swear at Him, too, if he thought fit. He's after money: he can't help it: it's in his blood. Don't worry about him. He'll die some day and have