He broke into mirth at her tone. “Simply this--that I can’t therefore, from one day to the other, pop up at Gossage in the purple pomp of the opposite camp. There’s a want of transition. It may be timid of me--it may be abject. But I can’t.” If she was not yet prepared to contest she was still less prepared to surrender it, and she confined herself for the instant to smoothing down with her foot the corner of an old rug. “Have you thought very much about it?” He was vague. “About what?” “About what Mr. Prodmore wants you to do.” He flushed up. “Oh, then, you know it’s _he_?” “I’m not,” she said, still gravely enough, “of an intelligence absolutely infantile.” “You’re the cleverest Tory I’ve ever met!” he laughed. “I didn’t mean to mention my friend’s name, but since _you’ve_ done so----!” He gave up with a shrug his scruple. Oh, she had already cleared the ground of it! “It’s he who’s the devouring wolf? It’s he who holds your mortgages?” The very lucidity of her interest just checked his assent. “He holds plenty of others, and he treats me very handsomely.” She showed of a sudden an inconsequent face. “Do you call _that_ handsome--such a condition?” He shed surprise. “Why, I thought it was just the condition you could meet.” She measured her inconsistency, but was not abashed. “We’re not talking of what _I_ can meet.” Yet she found also a relief in dropping the point. “Why doesn’t he stand himself?” “Well, like other devouring wolves, he’s not personally adored.” “Not even,” she asked, “when he offers such liberal terms?” Clement Yule had to explain. “I dare say he doesn’t offer them to everyone.” “Only to you?”--at this she quite sprang. “You _are_ personally adored; you will be still more if you stand; and that, you poor lamb, is why he wants you!” The young man, obviously pleased to find her after all more at one with him, accepted gracefully enough the burden her sympathy imposed. “I’m the bearer of my name, I’m the representative of my family; and to my family and my name--since you’ve led me to it--this countryside has been for generations indulgently attached.” She listened to him with a sentiment in her face that showed how now, at last, she felt herself deal with the lawful heir. She seemed to perceive it with a kind of passion. “You do of course what you will with the countryside!” “Yes”--he went with her--“if we do it as genuine Yules. I’m obliged of course to grant you that your genuine Yule’s a Tory of Tories. It’s Mr. Prodmore’s belief that I should carry Gossage in that character, but in that character only. They won’t look at me in any other.” It might have taxed a spectator to say in what character Mrs. Gracedew, on this, for a little, considered him. “Don’t be too sure of people’s not looking at you!” He blushed again, but he laughed. “We must leave out my personal beauty.” “We can’t!” she replied with decision. “Don’t we take in Mr. Prodmore’s?” Captain Yule was not prepared. “You call him beautiful?”