"To make some money?" he repeated, half-scornful, half-puzzled.
"Oh, you're rich—you don't know. We spent a lot at Henstead. We must have money: I spend a lot, so does Alexander." She glanced at him, and he saw that something had nearly escaped her lips of which she repented. "Do you ever feel," she went on, apparently by way of amendment, "as if you might be dishonest—under stress of circumstances, you know?"
"I suppose I might. I've never thought about it."
"So dishonest as—as to get into trouble and be sent to prison and so on?"
"Oh, I should hope to be skilful enough to avoid that," he laughed. "Fools ought never to be dishonest; so they invented the 'best policy' proverb to keep themselves straight."
May nodded. "That's it, I think," she said, and fell into silence again. This time he spoke.
"I don't like your wanting money," he said in a low voice.
"No, I know," she smiled. "It's not like what you've always chosen to think I'm like. I ought to live in gilded halls and scatter largesse, oughtn't I?" She laughed a little bitterly. "Perhaps I will, if cousin Mandeville does his duty."
"Meanwhile you feel the temptation to dishonesty?" He paused, but then went on deliberately, "Or, to follow your rule of complete identification, shall I say 'we feel a temptation to dishonesty, do we?'"
"Oh, but we should be clever enough not to be found out, shouldn't we?"