and others outside of it. Even blundering, cringing, foolish Mrs.
Ingham-Baker would have acted more wisely, for she would have
followed the dictates of an exceedingly soft, if shallow, heart.

"I had hoped for a more satisfactory home-coming than this," said
Mrs. Harrington in her hardest voice. When she spoke in this tone
there was the faintest suggestion of a London accent.

Fitz made a little movement, a step forward, as if she had been
unconsciously approaching the brink of some danger, and he wished to
warn her. The peculiar twist in Luke's lips became momentarily more
visible, and he kept his deep, despondent eyes fixed on the
speaker's face.

There are two kinds of rich women. The one spends her money in
doing good, the other pays it away to gratify her love of power. Of
the Honourable Mrs. Harrington it was never reported that she was
lavish in her charities.

"I think," she said, "that I ought to tell you that I have been
paying the expenses of your education almost entirely. I was in no
way bound to do so. I took charge of you at your father's death
because I--because he was a true friend to me. I do not grudge the
money, but in return I expected you to work hard and get on in your
profession."

She stiffened herself with a rustling sound of silk, proudly
conscious of injured virtue, full of the charity that exacteth a
high interest.