"Oh, you know, if I had not got him out someone else would have, and I thought it better that the circulation of money should proceed directly from his pocket to mine." "You haven't any stupid prejudices yourself, that's clear," said Annandale, helping himself as he spoke to more Scotch. "Sylvia," he continued, "if I am ever up for murder I will retain Melanchthon Orr." Orr laughed. "That retainer will never reach me. You would not hurt a fly." "Wouldn't I?" And Annandale assumed an expression of great ferocity. "You don't know me. I can imagine circumstances in which I could wade in gore. By the way, I have ordered a revolver." "What!" "Yes, a burglar got in my place the night before last and woke me up. If he comes back and wakes me up again I'll blow his head off." Sylvia looked at him much as she might at a boastful child. "Yes, yes, Arthur, but please don't take so much of that whisky." "I think I will have a drop of it, if I may," said Loftus, who meanwhile had been talking to Fanny. In a moment he turned to her anew. "Where are you going this summer?" "To Narragansett. It is cool and cheap. Why don't you come?" "It is such a beastly hole." "Well, perhaps. But do you think you would think so if I were there?" "That would rather depend on how you treated me." "You mean, don't you, that it would rather depend on how I let you treat me?" Fanny, as she spoke, looked Loftus in the eyes and made a face at him. That face, Loftus, after a momentary interlude with knife and fork, tried to mimic. "If a chap gave you the chance you would drive him to the devil." On Fanny's lips a smile bubbled. She shook her pretty head. "No, not half so far. Not even so far as the other end of Fifth avenue, where I saw you trying to scrape acquaintance with that girl. Apropos. You might tell me. How are matters progressing? Has the castle capitulated?" "I haven't an idea what you are talking about." "That's right. Assume a virtue though you have it not. It's a good plan." "It does not appear to be yours." "Appearances may be deceptive." "And even may not be." Sylvia interrupted them. "What are you two quarreling about?" "Mr. Loftus does not like my hat. Don't you like it, Mr. Orr?" "I like everything about you, everything, from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet." "There!" exclaimed Fanny. "That is the way I like to have a man talk." "It is dreadfully difficult," Loftus threw in. "You seem to find it so," Fanny threw back. Sylvia raised a finger. "Mr. Loftus, if you do not stop quarreling with Fanny I will make you come and sit by me." "If I am to look upon that as a punishment, Miss Waldron," Loftus with negligent gallantry replied, "what would you have me regard as a reward?" "Arthur! Arthur!" Fanny cried. "Did you hear that? This man is making up to Sylvia."