support it with something."

"What is it you're trying to break to me?" I demanded.

The dear old lady swallowed heavily. (It must be something pretty awful
if it daunted _her_!)

"You like Roger Fane," she began.

"Yes, I admire him. He's handsome and interesting, though a little too
mysterious and tragic to live with for my taste."

"He's not mysterious at all!" she defended Fane. "His tragedy--for there
_was_ a tragedy!--is no secret in America. I often met him before the
war, when I ran over to pay visits in New York, though he was far from
being in the Four Hundred. But at the moment I've no more to say about
Roger Fane. I've been using him for a handle to brandish a friend of his
in front of your eyes."

My blood grew hot. "_Not_ the ex-cowboy?"

"That's no way to speak of Sir James Courtenaye."

"Then _he's_ what you want to break to me?"

"I want--I mean, I'm _requested_!--to inform you of a way he proposes
out of the woods for you--at least, the darkest part of the woods."

"I told Mr. Carstairs I'd see James Courtenaye d--d rather than----"

"_This_ is a different affair entirely. You must listen, my dear, unless
I'm to wash my hands of you! What I have to describe is the foundation
for the Brightening."

I swallowed some more of Grandmother's expressions which occurred to me,
and listened.

Sir James Courtenaye's second proposition was not an offer of charity.
He suggested that I let Courtenaye Abbey to him for a term of years, for
the sum of one thousand five hundred pounds per annum, the first three
years to be paid in advance. (This clause, Mrs. Carstairs hinted, would
enable me to dole out crumbs here and there for the quieting of
Grandmother's creditors.) Sir James's intention was, not to use the
Abbey as a residence, but to make of it a show place for the public
during the term of his lease. In order to do this, the hall must be
restored and the once-famous gardens beautified. This expense he would
undertake, carrying the work quickly to completion, and would reimburse
himself by means of the fees--a shilling a head--charged for viewing the
house and its historic treasures.

When I had heard all this, I hesitated what to answer, thinking of
Grandmother, and wondering what she would have said had she been in my
shoes. But as this thought flitted into my mind, it was followed by
another. One of Grandmother's few old-fashioned fads was her style of
shoe: pattern 1875. The shoes I stood i