"You forget—I haven't a farthing!" I fiercely reminded her. "But Mr. Carstairs won't forget! I've made him too much trouble. The best Brightening won't run to half a Background in Berkeley Square."
"Wait," Mrs. Carstairs calmed me. "I haven't finished the whole proposition yet. In America, when we run up a sky-scraper, we don't begin at the bottom, in any old, commonplace way. We stick a few steel girders into the earth; then we start at the top and work down. That's what I've been doing with my plan. It's perfect. Only you've got to 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?"