you?"     

       "Yes. I daresay my love is of a very feeble quality."     

       "Don't be bitter and don't pity yourself, Mr. Hench. Your liking for me is perfectly honourable, and I am sure you would make a kind husband. But love--you know nothing of love. I said that before, I fancy, and I say it again." She offered her gloved hand. "Come! Let us be friends, nothing nearer, nothing dearer. Otherwise you will make me unhappy."     

       Round the corner of the music-hall, where no one was about, Hench bent       over Zara's hand and kissed it. "Let it be as you say," he said firmly; "all the same, I envy Bracken his future wife."     

       "You will meet a woman who will suit you better than I will,"       Zara assured him, and her great black eyes shone. "When you do, come and tell me how wholly correct I have been. And another thing, Mr. Hench, don't let mother bully me about you."     

       "There's no chance. I am too poor to be your husband so far as Madame Alpenny is concerned, even though she likes me better than she did."     

       Zara looked at him curiously. "Are you sure that you are poor?"       she asked in an enigmatic tone, and then ran into the music-hall, through the dark stage door, before he could reply.     

       Hench strolled home leisurely, wondering what she meant by her last speech. Of course he was poor. She knew it; so did Madame Alpenny; so did every one in the boarding-house. Yet she implied a doubt. Resolving to ask for an explanation when occasion served, the young man dismissed this particular matter from his mind, and thought of his misfortune in losing Zara. He had always admired her, and now that she had spoken to him so eloquently he admired her more than ever. Hitherto more or less silent, she had never displayed the common-sense qualities of her mind before. Therefore Hench saw that she was not only a handsome woman and an accomplished girl, but had considerable mental powers. Otherwise she could scarcely have placed the truth so plainly before him as she had done. And with a sigh the pseudo-lover confessed that it was the truth. What he felt was not love, for, although he regretted his dismissal from the wooing of a noble woman, he by no means felt broken-hearted, as Bracken would have done. Hench recognized that his desire for 

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