Cora, in spite of this announcement, came down boldly enough without him and made directly for Mrs. Gracedew, to whom her eyes had attached themselves with an undeviating glare. Her plain purpose of treating this lady as an isolated presence allowed their companion perfect freedom to consider her arrival with sharp alarm. His disconcerted stare seemed for a moment to balance; it wandered, gave a wild glance at the open door, then searched the ascent of the staircase, in which, apparently, it now found a coercion. “I’ll go up!” he gasped; and he took three steps at a time. V The girl threw herself, in her flushed eagerness, straight upon the wonderful lady. “I’ve come back to you--I want to speak to you!” The need had been a rapid growth, but it was clearly immense. “May I confide in you?” Her instant overflow left Mrs. Gracedew both astonished and amused. “You too?” she laughed. “Why it _is_ good we come over!” “It is, indeed!” Cora gratefully echoed. “You were so very kind to me and seemed to think me so curious.” The mirth of her friend redoubled. “Well, I loved you for it, and it was nothing moreover to what you thought _me_!” Miss Prodmore found, for this, no denial--she only presented her frank high colour. “I loved _you_. But I’m the worst!” she generously added. “And I’m solitary.” “Ah, so am I!” Mrs. Gracedew declared with gaiety, but with emphasis. “A _very_ queer thing always _is_ solitary! But, since we have that link, by all means confide.” “Well, I was met here by tremendous news.” Cora produced it with a purple glow. “He wants me to marry him!” Mrs. Gracedew looked amiably receptive, but as if she failed as yet to follow. “‘He’ wants you?” “Papa, of course. He has settled it!” Mrs. Gracedew was still vague. “Settled what?” “Why, the whole question. That I must take him.” Mrs. Gracedew seemed to frown at her own scattered wits. “But, my dear, take _whom_?” The girl looked surprised at this lapse of her powers. “Why, Captain Yule, who just went up.” “Oh!” said Mrs. Gracedew with a full stare. “Oh!” she repeated, looking straight away. “I thought you would know,” Cora gently explained. Her friend’s eyes, with a kinder light now, came back to her. “I didn’t know.” Mrs. Gracedew looked, in truth, as if that had been sufficiently odd, and seemed also to wonder at two or three things more. It all, however, broke quickly into a question. “Has Captain Yule asked you?” “No, but he _will_”--Cora was clear as a bell. “He’ll do it to keep the house. It’s mortgaged to papa, and Captain Yule buys it back.” Her friend had an illumination that was rapid for the way it spread. “By marrying you?” she quavered. Cora, under further parental instruction, had plainly mastered the subject. “By giving me his name and his position. They’re awfully great, and they’re the price, don’t you see?” she modestly mentioned. “_My_ price. Papa’s price. Papa wants them.”