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

"She wishes to endow--?"
"Some earnest and 'loyal' seeker," Gravener said. "It was a

sketchy design of her late husband's, and he handed it on to her;
setting apart in his will a sum of money of which she was to enjoy

the interest for life, but of which, should she eventually see her
opportunity--the matter was left largely to her discretion--she

would best honour his memory by determining the exemplary public
use. This sum of money, no less than thirteen thousand pounds, was

to be called The Coxon Fund; and poor Sir Gregory evidently
proposed to himself that The Coxon Fund should cover his name with

glory--be universally desired and admired. He left his wife a full
declaration of his views, so far at least as that term may be

applied to views vitiated by a vagueness really infantine. A
little learning's a dangerous thing, and a good citizen who happens

to have been an ass is worse for a community than bad sewerage.
He's worst of all when he's dead, because then he can't be stopped.

However, such as they were, the poor man's aspirations are now in
his wife's bosom, or fermenting rather in her foolish brain: it

lies with her to carry them out. But of course she must first
catch her hare."

"Her earnest loyal seeker?"
"The flower that blushes unseen for want of such a pecuniary

independence as may aid the light that's in it to shine upon the
human race. The individual, in a word, who, having the rest of the

machinery, the spiritual, the intellectual, is most hampered in his
search."

"His search for what?"
"For Moral Truth. That's what Sir Gregory calls it."

I burst out laughing. "Delightful munificent Sir Gregory! It's a
charming idea."

"So Miss Anvoy thinks."
"Has she a candidate for the Fund?"

"Not that I know of--and she's perfectlyreasonable about it. But
Lady Coxon has put the matter before her, and we've naturally had a

lot of talk."
"Talk that, as you've so interestingly intimated, has landed you in

a disagreement."
"She considers there's something in it," Gravener said.

"And you consider there's nothing?"
"It seems to me a piece of solemn twaddle--which can't fail to be

attended with consequences certainly grotesque and possibly
immoral. To begin with, fancy constituting an endowment without

establishing a tribunal--a bench of competent people, of judges."
"The sole tribunal is Lady Coxon?"

"And any one she chooses to invite."
"But she has invited you," I noted.

"I'm not competent--I hate the thing. Besides, she hasn't," my
friend went on. "The real history of the matter, I take it, is

that the inspiration was originally Lady Coxon's own, that she
infected him with it, and that the flattering option left her is

simply his tribute to her beautiful, her aboriginal enthusiasm.
She came to England forty years ago, a thin transcendental

Bostonian, and even her odd happy frumpy Clockborough marriage
never really materialised her. She feels indeed that she has

become very British--as if that, as a process, as a 'Werden,' as
anything but an original sign of grace, were conceivable; but it's

precisely what makes her cling to the notion of the 'Fund'--cling
to it as to a link with the ideal."

"How can she cling if she's dying?"
"Do you mean how can she act in the matter?" Gravener asked.

"That's precisely the question. She can't! As she has never yet
caught her hare, never spied out her lucky impostor--how should

she, with the life she has led?--her husband's intention has come
very near lapsing. His idea, to do him justice, was that it SHOULD

lapse if exactly the right person, the perfect mixture of genius
and chill penury, should fail to turn up. Ah the poor dear woman's

very particular--she says there must be no mistake."
I found all this quite thrilling--I took it in with avidity. "And

if she dies without doing anything, what becomes of the money?" I
demanded.

"It goes back to his family, if she hasn't made some other
disposition of it."

"She may do that then--she may divert it?"
"Her hands are not tied. She has a grand discretion. The proof is

that three months ago she offered to make the proceeds over to her
niece."

"For Miss Anvoy's own use?"
"For Miss Anvoy's own use--on the occasion of her prospective

marriage. She was discouraged--the earnest seeker required so
earnest a search. She was afraid of making a mistake; every one

she could think of seemed either not earnest enough or not poor
enough. On the receipt of the first bad news about Mr. Anvoy's

affairs she proposed to Ruth to make the sacrifice for her. As the
situation in New York got worse she repeated her proposal."

"Which Miss Anvoy declined?"
"Except as a formal trust."

"You mean except as committing herself legally to place the money?"
"On the head of the deserving object, the great man frustrated,"

said Gravener. "She only consents to act in the spirit of Sir
Gregory's scheme."

"And you blame her for that?" I asked with some intensity.
My tone couldn't have been harsh, but he coloured a little and

there was a queer light in his eye. "My dear fellow, if I 'blamed'
the young lady I'm engaged to I shouldn't immediately say it even

to so old a friend as you." I saw that some deep discomfort, some
restless desire to be sided with, reassuringly, approvingly

mirrored, had been at the bottom of his drifting so far, and I was
genuinely touched by his confidence. It was inconsistent with his

habits; but being troubled about a woman was not, for him, a habit:
that itself was an inconsistency. George Gravener could stand

straight enough before any other combination of forces. It amused
me to think that the combination he had succumbed to had an

American accent, a transcendental aunt and an insolvent father; but
all my old loyalty to him mustered to meet this unexpected hint

that I could help him. I saw that I could from the insincere tone
in which he pursued: "I've criticised her of course, I've

contended with her, and it has been great fun." Yet it clearly
couldn't have been such great fun as to make it improper for me

presently to ask if Miss Anvoy had nothing at all settled on
herself. To this he replied that she had only a trifle from her

mother--a mere four hundred a year, which was exactly why it would
be convenient to him that she shouldn't decline, in the face of

this total change in her prospects, an accession of income which
would distinctly help them to marry. When I enquired if there were

no other way in which so rich and so affectionate an aunt could
cause the weight of her benevolence to be felt, he answered that

Lady Coxon was affectionate indeed, but was scarcely to be called
rich. She could let her project of the Fund lapse for her niece's

benefit, but she couldn't do anything else. She had been
accustomed to regard her as tremendously provided for, and she was

up to her eyes in promises to anxious Coxons. She was a woman of
an inordinate conscience, and her conscience was now a distress to

her, hovering round her bed in irreconcilable forms of resentful
husbands, portionless nieces and undiscoverable philosophers.

We were by this time getting into the whirr of fleeting platforms,
the multiplication of lights. "I think you'll find," I said with a

laugh, "that your predicament will disappear in the very fact that