As he stood there, with his hands folded in front of him in an attitude of prayer, Mrs. Lamb regarded him with what could hardly be regarded as glances of admiration. When she addressed him it was with a frankness which was hardly in keeping with her _rôle_ of great lady, and which is not usual when one deals with one's legal adviser. "Listen to me, Luker. I want none of your humbug, and I want none of your lies. I want ten thousand pounds inside a week--and you've got to get them. I'll give fifteen thousand for the ten, so there won't be a bad profit for some one." "How long do you want the money for?" "Oh--three months." "On what security?" "What security? On the security of my property." "Your property?" Mr. Luker did not smile--a smile was probably another thing of which he was incapable--but his wizened features assumed a curious aspect. "Of what does your property consist?" "None of your nonsense. To begin with, there are those ten thousand shares in the Hardwood Company. As you know very well, they're worth over fifty thousand pounds at the present moment." "They would be if you had them--but you haven't." "McTavish & Brown have got them, and you're going to make them disgorge." "We've first of all to prove that they've got them." "Oh no, we haven't; they have to prove that they handed them over to Cuthbert Grahame, which is a very different thing, as you know very well." "My dear Isabel, you're a very clever woman; your fault is that, if anything, you're too clever." "I've heard you called too clever before to-day." "My dear----" "Don't you call me your dear! I won't have it." "Very well, although it is possible that few men have a better right----" "Right! Don't you dare to talk to me about right!--you!--don't you talk to me like that, Mr. Luker! You just simply listen to me. I want ten thousand pounds before this day week, and you've got to get it. No one in London knows better than you from whom and how to get it." "Mrs. Lamb--by the way, how is your worthy husband?" "Never mind my worthy husband--you keep to the point." "Even supposing we are able to saddle McTavish & Brown with the responsibility for the Hardwood shares--which is problematical--it'll take a good deal more than three months to do it. It is not to be supposed that they'll accept an adverse decision without taking the case through every court available. That may take years. If in the end it is decided that they will have to pay, it is not by any means certain that they will be able to. Costs will have swollen the original total enormously; it all will have to come from them. There is nothing to show that they are in a position to pay such a huge sum as that will be." "Oh yes, there is; they're rolling in money; I've seen enough of them to know so much."