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Rh "Yes?"—she looked up askance at the stroke.

"Why the devil do you want us?" The question rang out and was truly for the poor lady, as the quick suffusion of her eyes showed, a challenge it would take more time than he left her properly to pick up. He left her in fact no time at all before he went on: "Why the devil did you say you'd offer fifty?"

She looked quite wan and seemed to wonder. "Did I say that?" She could only let his challenge lie. "It was a figure of speech!"

"Then that's the kind of figure we're talking about!" Mr. Prodmore's sharpness would have struck an auditor as the more effective that, on the heels of this thrust, seeing the ancient butler reappear, he dropped the victim of it as comparatively unimportant and directed his fierceness instantly to Chivers, who mildly gaped at him from the threshold of the court. "Have you seen Miss Prodmore? If you haven't, find her!"

Mrs. Gracedew addressed their visitor in a very different tone, though with the full authority of her benevolence. "You won't, my dear man." To Mr. Prodmore also she continued bland. "I happen to know she has gone for a walk."