Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/137

 are now quite explicit. I did not see your attitude before."

Under this sirocco of sarcasm she withered; but still fighting for her standard replied, hotly, "You deliberately misapply my words."

"Motives," he corrected, unmoved.

It was too much! She felt like a schoolgirl being quietly admonished by a head master.

"Since you are so exact," she remarked, petulantly, "perhaps you will try to make me see that your motives in assisting us as you have, and we recognise that service, too, are entirely unprejudiced? That you are here as a philanthropist giving service to our house, one that you have never known! That you are not here because you want to save that person Rhodes, for whom you work, his money."

"That last may be so," he declared, patiently. "I am here to save John Rhodes' money. Do you believe that a kingdom, any more than an individual, can advance itself without money?"

"Honour is better than money," she asserted.

"It seems to me that I've heard that before," he said, smiling. "I didn't know that was in your copy books, also. Since you are intent on fighting me, suppose you draw the line for me by telling where honour begins after one has practically abrogated one's debts. I am interested, Mademoiselle. I would know the ideas of royalty in those [133]