Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/45

Rh "I mean"—he kindly discriminated—"do you want so badly to work her off?"

"It would be an intense convenience to me—so much so that your telegram made me at once fondly hope you'd be arriving to conclude."

Such measure of response as he had good-naturedly given her was the mere frayed edge of a mastering detachment, the copious, impatient range elsewhere of his true attention. Somehow, however, he still seemed kind even while, turning his back upon her, he moved off to look at one of the several, the famous Dedborough pictures—stray specimens, by every presumption, lost a little in the whole bright bigness. "'Conclude'?" he echoed as he approached a significantly small canvas. "You ladies want to get there before the road's so much as laid or the country's safe! Do you know what this here is?" he at once went on.

"Oh, you can't have that!" she cried as with full authority—"and you must really understand that you can't have everything. You mustn't expect to ravage Dedborough."

He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. "I guess it's a bogus Cuyp—but I