"Yes--Miss Palliser, I'm in the most intolerable position with regard to Miss Harden." "You knew they were making these arrangements?" "Oh yes, I knew it all the time I was working for her. What's more, I'm supposed to be the agent for the sale." "Well--if it's got to be sold, why not?" "Well, you see, my father's only an ordinary dealer. I'm about the only person concerned who knows the real value and I know that it's been undervalued. Of course, without the smallest dishonesty on Mr. Pilkington's part." "Mr. who?" Kitty had not yet heard of Mr. Pilkington. "Pilkington." "What's his address?" He gave it her. Kitty made a note of the name and address. "Unfortunately Mr. Pilkington has an absolute right to sell it, and my father has an absolute right to buy it." "Well, somebody's got to buy it, I suppose?" "Yes, but it seems to me we oughtn't to do anything till we know whether any of Miss Harden's people will come forward." "She is the last of her people." "How about Mr. Jewdwine? He's her cousin." "On her mother's side." "Still he's her cousin. I wrote to him ten days ago; and I haven't got any answer as yet." "What did you say to him?" "I invited him to step in and buy the library over our heads." "And how much would he have had to pay for it?" "Probably more than one thousand two hundred." "Well--if you think that Mr. Jewdwine is the man to deal so lightly with two hundred pounds, let alone the thousand! Really, that's the quaintest thing you've done yet. May I ask if this is the way you generally do business?" "No, I can't say that it is." "Well, well, you were very safe." "Safe? I don't want to be safe. Don't you see how horrible it is for me? I'd give anything if he or anyone else would come in now and walk over us." "Still, I don't wonder that you got no answer to your very remarkable proposal." "It seemed to me a very simple and obvious proposal." "I don't know much about business," said Kitty, "but I can think of a much more simple and obvious one. Why can't your people buy in the library and sell it again for Miss Harden on commission?" "Do you suppose I haven't thought of that? It would be very simple and obvious if it rested with me, but I'm afraid my father mightn't see it in the same light. You see, the thing doesn't lie between Miss Harden and me, but between my father and Mr. Pilkington." "I don't understand." "It's this way. My father won't be buying the library from Miss Harden, but from Mr. Pilkington. And--my father is a man of business." "And you most certainly are not." "So he isn't likely to give any more for it than he can help." "Of course not." "Well, but--do you know what the library was valued at?" Kitty did, and she would have blurted it out had not an inner voice told her to be discreet for once. He took her silence for a confession of ignorance. "Would you think a thousand pounds an absurdly high valuation?" "I don't know."