Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/123

Rh if her ladyship's misfortune were a feature of her malady or only of her character, and he replied that it was a product of both. The case he wanted to put to me was a matter on which it would interest him to have the impression—the judgment, he might also say—of another person. "I mean of the average intelligent man," he said; "but you see I take what I can get." There would be the technical, the strictly legal view; then there would be the way the question would strike a man of the world. He had lighted another cigarette while he talked, and I saw he was glad to have it to handle when he brought out at last, with a laugh slightly artificial, "In fact it's a subject on which Miss Anvoy and I are pulling different ways."

"And you want me to pronounce between you? I pronounce in advance for Miss Anvoy."

"In advance—that's quite right. That's how I pronounced when I asked her to marry me. But my story will interest you only so far as your mind is not made up." Gravener puffed his cigarette a minute and then continued: "Are you familiar with the idea of the Endowment of Research?"

"Of Research?" I was at sea for a moment.

"I give you Lady Coxon's phrase. She has it on the brain."

"She wishes to endow"

"Some earnest and disinterested seeker," Gravener said. "It was a sketchy design of her late