, all action was supposed to proceed
from me.

"My cousin has just told me of her marriage," I opened, as dryly concise
as I could manage explanation. "It is of course impossible that she
should adopt your way of living, as she seems to have in mind. You may
not understand, yet, that it also is impossible for you to adopt hers.
No doubt you have supposed her to be the daughter of wealthy people, or
at least people of whom money could be obtained. You were wrong.
Professor Knox has nothing but his modest salary. Her parents are of the
scholarly, not of the moneyed class. She has no kin who could or would
support her husband or pay largely to be rid of him. Of all her people,
I happen to be the best off, financially. It happens also that I am not
sentimental, nor alarmed at the idea of newspaper exploitation for
either of us. It is necessary that all this be plainly set forth before
we go further.

"Now, for your side: you have involved Miss Knox to the extent of
marriage. To free her from this trap into which her inexperience has
walked is worth a reasonable price. I will pay it. I shall take her home
to her father and mother tonight, and consult my lawyer tomorrow. He
will conduct negotiations with you. The day Miss Knox is divorced from
you without useless scandal or trouble-making, I will pay to you the sum
agreed upon with my lawyer. If you prefer to make yourself
objectionable, you will get nothing, now or later."

He took it all without a flicker of the eyelids, not interrupting or
displaying any affectation of being insulted. I acknowledge, now, that
it was an outrageous speech to make to a man of whom I knew nothing. But
it was so intended; summing up what I considered an outrageous situation
brought about by his playing upon a young girl's ignorance of such
fellows as himself. Phillida's usually pale cheeks were burning. Several
times she would have broken in upon me with protests, if Vere had not
silenced her by the merest glances of warning. A proof of his influence
over her which had not inclined me toward gentleness with him!

When I finished there was a pause before he turned his dark eyes to
mine, and held them there.

"Honest enough!" he drawled, with that incongruous coast-of-Maine tang
to his leisureliness. "I'll match you there, Mr. Locke. I don't care
whether you make fifty thousand a year with your music writing, or
whether you grind a street-piano with a tin-cup on top. It's nothing to
me. I g