She broke out: "It would never have come to this but for the cost of this irrigation scheme on the Burdon property. That is your doing--yours and Mr. Maxwell's. I tell you again I was amazed--amazed when I heard of it." "And I have reminded you, Lady Burdon, that when I approached you in the matter you desired not to be troubled with it. I had often and often urged it upon you. This time you said it was to be left entirely to our discretion--Maxwell's and mine." "I shall repudiate the contract. The work is not begun. You can get out of it as best you can." He said very quietly, "That is open to you--of course." He paused and she did not speak, and he went on. "You would have no case, I think. The authority is too clear. But I do not mind saying I would try to get out of the contract or--. Our firm could not be involved in a lawsuit against the house we have served these generations." He dropped his voice and said more to himself than to her: "No--no. Never that!" He looked up at her and assumed a cheerful note: "You have to think of your son, you know, Lady Burdon. What is he to come into? This irrigation scheme will be the making of the property--the land cries for it. If you can cut off the Burdon House establishment for a few years, young Mr. Rollo will have reason to bless you when in process of time he assumes the title. If you decide--" She rose abruptly: "I must be going." Mr. Pemberton hobbled after her down the stairs to attend her to her carriage. A bitter wind was blowing. The coachman was walking the horses up and down. The footman who waited in the doorway, rugs on arm, ran into the street and beckoned to him. Lady Burdon watched the carriage, tapping her foot on the ground and frowning impatiently. A large piece of pink paper came blowing down the pavement, somersaulting along in a ridiculous fashion--heels over head, heels over head, grotesquely like a performing tumbler. "Cold!" said Mr. Pemberton, briskly, rubbing his hands together. "Very cold!" She made no reply. She was much out of temper. She was considerably beset. She was stiffening with an angry determination against abandoning her life in town. She was freshly aroused against Mr. Pemberton for his devoted loyalty to her husband's house--he had stung her by the manner of his acceptance of her threat to repudiate the contract; and by his reference to Rollo--he had hit her there. The tumbling paper--a newspaper contents bill she could see--flung itself flat a few yards from them, throwing out its upper corners as it came to rest, for all the world like an exhausted tumbler throwing out his arms. The carriage drew up. With a foot on the step: "You need not call on Lord Burdon till I have written to you--to arrange a date," she said. Mr. Pemberton replied: "I certainly will not. I will await your letter, Lady Burdon."