,
was standing at the window and saw her. 'Ah!' she thought, 'if he had
not been at the window, if he had not caught sight of me, I should have
walked past!' And that chance of escape seemed like a lost bliss.

Uncle Meshach himself opened the door.

'Come in, lass,' he said, looking her up and down through his glasses.
'You're the prettiest thing I've seen since I saw ye last. Your aunt's
out, with the servant too; and I'm left here same as a dog on the chain.
That's how they leave me.'

She was thankful that Aunt Hannah was out: that made the affair simpler.

'Well, uncle,' she said, 'I haven't seen you since you came back from
the Isle of Man, have I?'

Some inspiration lent her a courage which rose far beyond embarrassment.
She saw at once that the old man was enchanted to have her in the house
alone, and flattered by the apparatus of feminine elegance which she
always displayed for him at its fullest. These two had a sort of cult
for each other, a secret sympathy, none the less sincere because it
seldom found expression. His pale blue eyes, warmed by her presence,
said: 'I'm an old man, and I've seen the world, and I keep a few of my
ideas to myself. But you know that no one understands a pretty woman
better than I do. A glance is enough.' And in reply to this challenge
she gave the rein to her profoundest instincts. She played the simple
feminine to his masculine. She dared to be the eternal beauty who rules
men, and will ever rule them, they know not why.

'My lass,' he said in a tone that granted all requests in advance, after
they had talked a while, 'you're after something.'

His wrinkled features, ironic but benevolent, intimated that he knew she
wished to take an unfair advantage of the gifts which Nature had
bestowed on her, and that he did not object.

She allowed herself to smile mysteriously, provocatively at him.

'Yes,' she admitted frankly, 'I am.'

'Well?' He waited indulgently for the disclosure.

She paused a moment, smiling steadily at him. The contrast of his
wizened age made her feel deliciously girlish.

'It's about my house, at Hillport,' she began with assurance. 'I want
you----'

And she told him, with no more than a sufficiency of detail, what she
wanted. She did not try to conceal that the aim was to help John, that,
in crude fact, it was John who needed the money. But she emphasised
'_my_ house,' and '_I_ want you to lend _me_.' The thing was well done,
and she knew it was