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Rh sigh, glancing over the place more attentively than she had yet done. "Do you mean that you can come down on him?"

"I don't need to 'come,' my dear—I am 'down.' This is down!"—and the iron point of Mr. Prodmore's stick fairly struck, as he rapped it, a spark from the cold pavement. "I came many weeks ago—commercially speaking—and haven't since budged from the place."

The girl moved a little about the hall, then turned with a spasm of courage. "Are you going to be very hard?"

If she read the eyes with which he met her she found in them, in spite of a certain accompanying show of pleasantry, her answer. "Hard with you?"

"No—that doesn't matter. Hard with the Captain."

Mr. Prodmore thought an instant. "'Hard' is a stupid, shuffling term. What do you mean by it?"

"Well, I don't understand business," Cora said; "but I think I understand you, papa, enough to gather that you've got, as usual, a striking advantage."

"As usual, I have scored; but my advantage won't be striking perhaps till I have sent the