Rollo was quite silent, long enough to have the silence marked. And when he spoke, it was not to Mrs. Coles, neither did he honour her by so much as a look, during the rest of her stay in the room. Primrose made the stay as short as she could, and Mrs. Coles who felt that she had lost her footing and did not know how to regain it, suffered herself to be carried away. But while Primrose got a kiss, she was dismissed by her host with a very ceremonious reverence. He had opened the door for the two and closed it behind them. Coming back he bent down to touch his lips to Wych Hazel's cheek. 'If you have any remarks to make, make them!' he said. 'I am defenceless, and at your mercy.' But for once Wych Hazel was in a region of air quite beyond Mrs. Coles. She looked up at him wistfully. 'I do not understand,' she said, 'how you ever came to care about me! It always was a puzzle,—and never so much as to-night.' The brown eyes were strangely soft and luminous and humble. 'How is that?' said he quietly, taking his former place beside her and making suggestions of addition to her supper. But Hazel laid down her fork, giving her plate a little push, in the fashion of old times. 'I have been looking into depths,' she said,—'abysses. I think I was never really near them, but I might have seemed so.' 'What sort of abysses? And in the mean time, take some ice—Mrs. Coles was correct in one thing she said.' 'Dane,' Hazel said abstractedly, 'do you think you could be a success where I have proved a failure?' 'Where have you proved a failure?' Hazel neglected her ice and leaned back in her chair. 'I used to think I could do things,' she said. 'And I have spent this whole afternoon and evening to no sort of purpose.' 'It is instructive, to learn sometimes that one cannot do things'— said Dane. I suppose he had a little curiosity, but not much, for he knew he should hear what there was to hear; and he was thinking much more of Hazel than of what she had or had not failed to do. So he spoke in a rather careless amused tone. 'Very!' Hazel answered.—'Dane, in buying up a man, is it more skilful to set a price—or to let him name it himself?' 'If you want to buy me,—I should say, let me set my own price.' 'Thank you. Even my extravagance does not desire such waste. But I want to buy off that nephew of Mme. Lasalle's. And—being worth nothing—how much is he worth? I believe I ought to have offered a definite sum,' she went on, half to herself. Dane roused up fully now, and demanded to know what she was talking about? 'He is going to Lisbon,' said Hazel, too engrossed to be very methodical in her details. 'And Josephine Charteris means to go with him. I can do nothing at all with _her_—and I _must_ do something with him.' 'Not with Stuart Nightingale—if that is what you mean.' 'I must.' 'I can find a substitute for that "must." What do you want to do, Wych?' 'Put them both under bonds. But I have tried, and failed.'