Mr.Belcher felt that there was a peculiar intimacy between the two, yet not one satisfactory word had he ever heard from the lady about her new pet.

He had become conscious, too, of a certain change in her.
She had been less in society, was more quiet than formerly, and more reticent in his presence, though she had never repulsed him.

He had caught fewer glimpses of that side of her nature and character which he had once believed was sympathetic with his own.

Misled by his own vanity into the constant belief that she was seriously in love with himself, he was determined to utilize her passion for his own purposes.

If she would not give kisses, she should give confidence.
"Mrs.Dillingham," he said, "I have been waiting to hear something about your pauper _protege_, and I have come to-night to find out what you know about him and his father." "If I knew of anything that would be of real advantage to you, I would tell you, but I do not," she replied.
"Well, that's an old story.