'You have tried Josephine? Do you say that she wants to go with him?' 'Says she _will_ go. Will not even take diamonds instead—and they were her price,' said Wych Hazel with sorrowful disgust. 'So then I tried him.' 'Tried _him!_ Have you seen Nightingale?' 'O yes. Annabella let him get her carriage and drive home with us. _I_ would not,' said Wych Hazel with energy. 'Not if I had waited there all night.' 'Was he in the carriage with you?' 'Coming home,—yes. And after Annabella was set down, I tried him with everything I could think of,—or everything _he_ could, rather.' 'I am very curious to hear what arguments you made use of.' Dane bent a little to look at the speaker, with a face half amused and wholly intent. Wych Hazel laughed softly. 'I am not a very round-about person,' she said. 'And if he had had either honour or conscience or feeling, there would have been no need for my speaking at all. And Josephine had just assured me that last year he wanted my fortune—so I asked him how much he would like to have now. In effect.' 'With the understanding that he might have what he spoke for?' 'O yes. Of course,' she added with a flush and a glance, 'he knew that I could only mean within certain limits. I did not tell him what they were.' Rollo looked at her for a moment almost sternly; but then he broke into a laugh. 'It is like Wych Hazel!' he said. 'Was it absurd?' said the girl, the crimson starting again. 'But I do not see why. I suppose that is like me too,' she added with a half laugh. 'I do not think you absurd,' said Rollo, laughing still. 'Perhaps— just a trifle—unbusinesslike.' 'But I thought it was good business to say exactly what you mean?' 'If you were practised in rifle shooting, I should tell you that you forgot to allow for the wind.' 'Well, as I am not?'—said Wych Hazel looking up at him. 'For instance. You are practising at a mark, perhaps eight hundred yards off; the first time you aim for the bull's eye, and hit it. Between the first shot and the second however, a breeze has sprung up. That alters the case. The second time you will not aim at the bull's eye, but perhaps—according to the force of the wind— a dozen feet to one side of it.' 'Did that ever happen in your shooting?' 'Such a thing has happened in my shooting.' 'And you hit it, that second time?' 'I hit it—yes.' Wych hazel looked soberly into the fire. 'You will never make a sharp-shooter of me, Olaf,' she said. 'I think nothing will ever make me learn calculation.' 'What did Nightingale answer you?' 'He said—or intimated—that I thought I had my old power still,' said Hazel slowly. 'He is one of the men that have their price. But you forgot that his pride must have its price too.' 'Pride? Can he have any pride left? It was just because—because he used to like to do what I said, that he would not now.' 'I do not understand yet how he came to be driving with you.'