Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/293

Rh "Oh, shucks, Lady Sandgate!"—and her visitor turned from her with the hunch of overcharged shoulders.

But she apparently felt that she held him, or at least that even if such a conviction might be fatuous she must now put it to the touch. "You've been delivered into my hands—too charmingly; and you won't really pretend that you don't recognise that and in fact rather like it."

He faced about to her again as to a case of coolness unparalleled—though indeed with a quick lapse of real interest in the question of whether he had been artfully practised upon; an indifference to bad debts or peculation like that of some huge hotel or other business involving a margin for waste. He could afford, he could work waste too, clearly—and what was it, that term, you might have felt him ask, but a mean measure, anyway? quite as the "artful," opposed to his larger game, would be the hiding and pouncing of children at play. "Do I gather that those uncanny words of his were just meant to put me off?" he inquired. And then as she but boldly and smilingly shrugged, repudiating responsibility, "Look here, Lady