"If I had intended to kick, you would have been black and blue by now, Mr. James Berring. But you needn't flatter yourself that my feelings are hurt in any way. You're not worth it." "Other women think differently." "Lola Fajardo, for instance." "Well, I can't help that, can I? If you'd been a different sort of woman, I'd have----" "You said that before. Had we not better get to business?" "What business?" "The insurance business. I don't care for you, and you show very plainly that you don't care for me. It is useless for us to struggle together like a couple of ill-matched dogs in leash. Give me fifteen thousand of this money, and then you can marry your Lola woman." Jim turned white again. "You seem jolly anxious to get rid of me." "Can you wonder if I do? How many women would take this scandalous matter as quietly as I do?" "It's not scandalous," said Kaimes, fiercely. "She thinks that I am a bachelor, and I'm not even engaged to her. I have tried to be true to you, Leah," declared Jim, pathetically. His wife shrugged her shoulders. It was rather late in the day for Jim to talk sentiment, besides being a waste of time. "Well?" she asked, facing him squarely. Jim read her purpose in a very flinty face. "I'll do what you want," he said weakly. "Then there's no more to be said," remarked Leah, coldly, moving towards the door of her bedroom. "Demetrius will explain, if you will afford him half an hour's private conversation." "Leah, do you really mean it?" "I have meant it from the first moment you put the idea into my head," she said in a harsh voice. "This underhand love-making of yours only makes me the more determined." "But there was no----" "Don't lie, Jim. A man can no more love two women than he can serve two masters. Is it to be Lola Fajardo, or myself?" "I leave it to you, Leah." "Then I choose the fifteen thousand pounds," she said, and vanished into the bedroom. Jim took an impulsive step towards the door, but the sharp click of a turning key showed him that he was locked out for ever. That evening Leah talked so gaily, and looked so beautiful, that her father-in-law was absolutely fascinated. "Is it all right between you and James?" he asked graciously. "Yes," Leah assured him; "we understand one another thoroughly." CHAPTER XII