sent round the country side. It was a factory, like a hat factory or a boot factory—a factory for the mind just as these others were factories for the body. Some factories turned out rubbish and others very good articles-printing factories, for examples.

They went upstairs to the composing room, which was above the editor's and the counting house. Here she saw the type in little boxes on sloping open desks and Lance showed her how it was set up, how the "copy" was handed out, how it was ultimately arranged and put in columns and pages.

Lance, as he explained, showed his keen interest in it all. She liked that. It was masculine. It was the thing a man had to do and the credit for him was when he did it well. She was glad she was learning how Mr. Lance Harvey worked.

He took her to his own room and she felt a thrill as he said: "This is my den."

"Is this where you work?" she asked.

"Yes. I bring my copy here, and if I haven't finished it at the meeting I write it out here. I write my notes and such things here and then send the copy to the composing room."

He spoke like one who was capable. She felt ability in him as he stood and talked in that room. He impressed her. The feeling she had before was the subtle attraction of sex, the mating feeling, merely affinity's beckoning. Now she confirmed it—printed it, so to speak. She felt: he does not make much money perhaps, but that makes no difference. Besides, he is sure to get on and I should take a great interest in this work of his. It would be nice to think of him writing and sending his-"copy," did he call it?-to the compositors to be set up in type so that the people in Gan

ton might read it. Perhaps Manchester or London, He interrupted her with:

some day

"Not a very romantic place, is it?”

and a drawbridge-or to have your paper produced on a 'Treasure Island'?"

She was feeling very happy and looked it.
He caught the bright gleam in her eyes.

"Ah! well, romance is not in the place, is it?" "A moment ago you were suggesting it was." "Perhaps I was thinking of it before you came," he said very daringly, almost without thinking. But he got no further-not in that line. He did not mean to go further, then, at any rate, for he had not "screwed up his courage" to say anything more personal just then. Of course had she wanted she could have got it out of him; she saw that. But it was sweet to feel it would come.

Although he spoke with a kind of jest, she knew he was also sincere. She turned the topic to the proper production of newspapers and learned how they depended on advertisements, and that the producers of pills and soap were in a great measure the pillars of a good deal of the great structure known as "the press."

Each of them felt in turn the kind of conventional thing they were doing and the something else that made them do it. She said to herself-not in actual words but in actual impression: I am going through the office and listening and watching because you are leading me. It is interesting, but it would not be half so interesting if someone else were my guide. And he, on his part, was feeling: I am showing you over

here and explaining all this because it is a positive joy to have you near me, to talk to you and to see if you take anything more than a bare interest in anything I do.

Now and again they seemed to catch a message going from their inmost selves to proclaim the truth, but it was repressed almost at once, with a kind of pleasant, passing recognition.

"It is very kind of you," she murmured as they came out of the building, "to have shown me over."

"I have been doing myself the kindness," he said politely, but so simply as to make it impressive.

"I won't trouble you to take me home: I can manage, I assure you" she said, looking at him with complete satisfaction and holding out a neat hand.

But he protested that at that moment he was free and would accompany her. The work for the week was practically over and, in case anything really serious happened that ought to go in the paper, the editor was there to stop the machines and get the news set up and inserted.

And it happened that as Lance was shaking hands with her outside Mr. Jupp's house, Mr. Ewins came along.

"'Ello!" He stopped and looked at the lady-a kind of scrutinising look, one to sum up things. "Well, finished your work for to-day?" he said to Lance. "Yes."

Mr. Ewins then nodded to Lina and Lance introduced them.

"Oh! Ah... Mr. Jupp's niece. . . . I 'eard, aye... Well, I'm off 'ome. Come down and see us," he said to Lance, and then with a laugh-"That girl o' mine's been reg'lar restless since we talked o'

marriage t'other night." He dug Lance in the ribs, and to Lina said, "These chaps, eh? . . . Goodday."

In a way he was "cattish." He had no fine big principles, just ordinary advantageous instincts which guided him, and he paid no regard to finer issues. If he wanted a thing he strove for it, that was his rule.

Lance was taken aback and smiled with a sort of "Well, really. "air. Lina was certainly affected. She seemed to grow stiffer.

"Thank you very much: it has been most interesting," she said. "Good-bye."

He took her hand and said, "Good-bye," wishing to

say more.

But she went in the house and left him.

CHAPTER XXI

A PROPOSAL

MR

R. EWINS, with the idea of a bargain troubling his mind, dwelt more and more on the prospect of dangling his daughter as a prospective match before Lance in the hope of getting that new machine cheap. In his view, Lance, with no money, would find the daughter of the rich Thomas Ewins irresistible. Money was irresistible, ergo the possessors of it were. To Ewins the bait was superb, couldn't be better. And the thing to be caught .. a new patent, cheap! Such a patent, too!

But in the meanwhile Tugwell intervened.

Amos had come home from business for the day looking unsettled. He had ideas, too, but just lacked the touch of resolution to put them to the test.

He took up the Manchester Evening News but at almost every fresh sentence he appeared to have his attention attracted elsewhere. He was in the easy chair and Mrs. Tugwell busied herself with household

matters.

"Business all right, Amos?" she asked. "Yes"

She was pouring out the contents of a packet of tea into a wooden box, lined with silver paper and divided into two compartments.

"Any news?" she asked after a pause.