Page:Two Magics.djvu/365

Rh "Every single one!" said Mrs. Gracedew. Then with still a finer shade of the familiar: "Should you be willing to treat, Mr. Prodmore, for your interest in this property?"

He threw back his head: she had scattered over the word "interest" such a friendly, faded colour. She was either not joking or was rich indeed; and there was a place always kept in his conversation for the arrival of money, as there is always a box in a well-appointed theatre for that of royalty. "Am I to take it from you then that you know about my interest?"

"Everything!" said Mrs. Gracedew with a world of wit.

"Excuse me, madam!"—he himself was now more reserved. "You don't know everything if you don't know that my interest—considerable as it might well have struck you—has just ceased to exist. I've given it up"—Mr. Prodmore softened the blow—"for a handsome equivalent."

The blow fell indeed light enough. "You mean for a handsome son-in-law?"

"It will be by some such description as the term you use that I shall doubtless, in the future, permit myself, in the common course, to allude to Captain Yule. Unless indeed I call him