“If it’s a large sum for you, then,” said Mrs. Gracedew, “it’s a still larger one for me.” She sank into a chair with a vague melancholy; such a mass loomed huge, and she sat down before it as a solitary herald, resigning himself with a sigh to wait, might have leaned against a tree before a besieged city. “We women”--she wished to conciliate--“have more modest ideas.” But Mr. Prodmore would scarce condescend to parley. “Is it as a ‘modest idea’ that you describe your extraordinary intrusion----?” His question scarce reached her; she was so lost for the moment in the sense of innocent community with her sex. “I mean I think we measure things often rather more exactly.” There would have been no doubt of Mr. Prodmore’s very different community as he rudely replied: “Then you measured _this_ thing exactly half an hour ago!” It was a long way to go back, but Mrs. Gracedew, in her seat, musingly made the journey, from which she then suddenly returned with a harmless, indeed quite a happy, memento. “Was I _very_ grotesque?” He demurred. “Grotesque?” “I mean--_did_ I go on about it?” Mr. Prodmore would have no general descriptions; he was specific, he was vivid. “You banged the desk. You raved. You shrieked.” This was a note she appeared indulgently, almost tenderly, to recognise. “We _do_ shriek at Missoura Top!” “I don’t know what you do at Missoura Top, but I know what you did at Covering End!” She warmed at last to his tone. “So do _I_ then! I surprised you. You weren’t at all prepared----” He took her briskly up. “No--and I’m not prepared yet!” Mrs. Gracedew could quite see it. “Yes, you’re too astonished.” “My astonishment’s my own affair,” he retorted--“not less so than my memory!” “Oh, I yield to your memory,” said the charming woman, “and I confess my extravagance. But quite, you know, _as_ extravagance.” “I don’t at all know,”--Mr. Prodmore shook it off,--“nor what you _call_ extravagance.” “Why, banging the desk. Raving. Shrieking. I over-did it,” she exclaimed; “I wanted to please you!” She had too happy a beauty, as she sat in her high-backed chair, to have been condemned to say that to any man without a certain effect. The effect on Mr. Prodmore was striking. “So you said,” he sternly inquired, “what you didn’t believe?” She flushed with the avowal. “Yes--for you.” He looked at her hard. “For _me_?” Under his eye--for her flush continued--she slowly got up. “And for those good people.” “Oh!”--he sounded most sarcastic. “Should you like me to call them back?” “No.” She was still gay enough, but very decided. “I took them in.” “And now you want to take _me_?” “Oh, Mr. Prodmore!” she almost pitifully, but not quite adequately, moaned. He appeared to feel he had gone a little far. “Well, if we’re not what you say----” “Yes?”--she looked up askance at the stroke.