"You've got an honesty; but I don't call it a really honest honesty."
"All this leads up to—the Radbolts!" declared Beaumaroy, with a gesture of disgust.
"It does. I want your word of honour—given to a friend—that all that money—all of it—goes to the Radbolts, if it legally belongs to them. I want that in exchange for the certificate."
"A hard bargain! It isn't so much that I want the money—though I must remark that in my judgment I have a strong claim to it; I would say a moral claim but for my deference to your views, Doctor Mary. But it isn't mainly that. I hate the Radbolts getting it—just as much as the old man would have hated it."
"I have given you my—my terms," said Mary.
Beaumaroy stood looking down at her, his hands in his pockets. His face was twisted in a humorous disgust. Mary laughed gently. "It is possible to—to keep the rules without being a prig, you know, though I believe you think it isn't."
"Including the sack in the water-butt? My sack—the sack I rescued?"
"Including the bag in the water-butt. Yes—every single sovereign!" Though Mary was pursuing the high moral line, there was now more mischief than gravity in her demeanour.
"Well, I'll do it!" He evidently spoke with a great effort. "I'll do it! But, look here, Doctor Mary, you'll live to be sorry you made me do it. Oh, I don't mean that that conscience of yours will be sorry. That'll approve, no doubt, being the extremely conventionalized thing it is. But you yourself—you'll be sorry—or I'm much mistaken in the Radbolts."
"It isn't a question of the Radbolts," she insisted, laughing.