Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/95

Rh Hill Street! Do you call it the moment for me to have liked to see myself all but cajoled into planking down even such a matter as the very much lower figure of Kitty's horrid incubus?"

"Ah, but the inducement and the quid pro quo," Lord John brightly indicated, "are here much greater! In the case you speak of you will only have removed the incubus—which, I grant you, she must and you must feel as horrid. In this other you pacify Lady Imber and marry Lady Grace: marry her to a man who has set his heart on her and of whom she has just expressed—to himself—a very kind and very high opinion."

"She has expressed a very high opinion of you?"—Lord Theign scarce glowed with credulity.

But the younger man held his ground. "She has told me she thoroughly likes me and that—though a fellow feels an ass repeating such things—she thinks me perfectly charming."

"A tremendous creature, eh, all round? Then," said Lord Theign, "what does she want more?"