The amiable visitor turned a trifle less direct. “His absence, for which I’m responsible, is just what renders the inquiry I speak of to you possible.” She had already assumed a most inquiring air, yet it was soon clear that she needed every advantage her manner could give her. “What will you take----? what will you take----?” It had the sound, as she faltered, of a general question, and Mr. Prodmore raised his eyebrows. “Take? Nothing, thank you--I’ve just had a cup of tea.” Then suddenly, as if on the broad hint: “Won’t _you_ have one?” “Yes, with pleasure--but not yet.” She looked about her again; she was now at close quarters and, concentrated, anxious, pressed her hand a moment to her brow. This struck her companion. “Don’t you think you’d be better for it immediately?” “No.” She was positive. “No.” Her eyes consciously wandered. “I want to know how you’d value----” He took her, as his own followed them, more quickly up, expanding in the presence of such a tribute from a real connoisseur. “One of these charming old things that take your fancy?” She looked at him straight now. “They _all_ take my fancy!” “All?” He enjoyed it as the joke of a rich person--the kind of joke he sometimes made himself. “Every single one!” said Mrs. Gracedew. Then with still a finer shade of the familiar: “Should you be willing to treat, Mr. Prodmore, for your interest in this property?” He threw back his head: she had scattered over the word “interest” such a friendly, faded colour. She was either _not_ joking or was rich indeed; and there was a place always kept in his conversation for the arrival of money, as there is always a box in a well-appointed theatre for that of royalty. “Am I to take it from you then that you _know_ about my interest----?” “Everything!” said Mrs. Gracedew with a world of wit. “Excuse me, madam!”--he himself was now more reserved. “You don’t know everything if you don’t know that my interest--considerable as it might well have struck you--has just ceased to exist. I’ve given it up”--Mr. Prodmore softened the blow--“for a handsome equivalent.” The blow fell indeed light enough. “You mean for a handsome son-in-law?” “It will be by some such description as the term you use that I shall doubtless, in the future, permit myself, in the common course, to allude to Captain Yule. Unless indeed I call him----” But Mr. Prodmore dropped the bolder thought. “It will depend on what he calls _me_.” Mrs. Gracedew covered him a moment with the largeness of her charity. “Won’t it depend a little on what your daughter herself calls him?” Mr. Prodmore seriously considered. “No. That,” he declared with delicacy, “will be between the happy pair.” “Am I to take it from you then--I adopt your excellent phrase,” Mrs. Gracedew said--“that Miss Prodmore has already accepted him?”