"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.