Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/180

THE IVORY TOWER in me as a general value, quite a first-rate value—that I stood there and didn't doubt. And yet she practically said 'You ass!'"

His encircling arm gained, for response to this, however, but the vibration of her headshake—without so much as any shudder at the pain he so vividly imaged. "She practically said that she was already then in love with Mr. Graham, and you wouldn't have had a better chance had a passion of your own stuck out of you. If I thought she didn't admire you," Cissy said, "I shouldn't be able to do with her at all—it would be too stupid of her; putting aside her not accepting you, I mean for a woman can't accept every man she admires. I suppose you don't at present object," she continued, "to her admiring Mr. Graham enough to account for anything; especially as it accounts so for her having just acted on his behalf with such extraordinary success. Doesn't that make it out for him," she asked, "that he's admired by twenty millions plus the amount that her reconciliation of him with his uncle just in time to save it, without an hour to spare, will represent for his pocket? We don't know what that lucky amount may be"

"No, but we more or less shall"—Horton took her straight up. "Of course, without exaggeration, that will be interesting—even though it will be but a question, I'm quite certain, of comparatively small things. Old Betterman—there are people 166