But why should you take so much trouble--and
how can you tell that the editor's paragraph would make the
Annesley-Setons want to know us?"

"As for the paragraph, you may put your faith in me. And as for the
trouble, nothing's too much to launch my wife on the top wave of society,
where she has every right to be. I want Mrs. Nelson Smith to have her
chance to shine. Money would do the trick sooner or later, but I want
it to be done sooner. Besides, I have a feeling I should like us to get
where we want to be, without the noisy splash money-bags make when
new-rich candidates for society are launched. Your people will see
excellent reasons why their late 'poor relation' is worth cultivating.

"But trust them to save their faces by keeping their real motive secret!"
with a touch of sarcasm. "I seem to hear them going about among their
friends, whom they'll invite to meet us, saying how charming and unspoilt
you are though you've got more money than you know what to do with----"

"I!" With the protesting pronoun Annesley disclaimed all ownership of her
husband's fortune, whatever it might be.

"It's the same thing. You and I are one. Whatever is mine is yours. I
don't swear to make you a regular, unfailing allowance worthy of the new
position you're going to have, because you see I do business with several
countries, and my income's erratic; I'm never sure to the day when it
will come or how much it will be. But there's nothing you want which you
can't buy; remember that. And when we begin life in London, you shall
have a standing account at as many shops as you like."

Annesley made no objection to Knight's plan for luring the journalist
into his "trap," which was a harmless one. According to his prophecy, Mr.
Milton Savage of the Torquay _Weekly Messenger_ accepted the invitation
from his correspondent, and came to luncheon on the day when the public
were free to view Valley House.

He was a small man with a big head and eyes which glinted large behind
convex spectacles. Annesley was charming to him, not only in the wish to
please Knight but because she was kind-hearted and had intense sympathy
for suppressed people. Mr. Savage was grateful and admiring, and drank in
every word Knight dropped, as if carelessly, about the relationship to
Lord Annesley-Seton.

Knight allowed himself to be pumped concerning it, and also his wife's
parentage, letting fall, with apparent inadvertence, bits of information
regarding himse