"In that case he's got you on the hip, hasn't he? It's a lovely turning of the tables."
"You see that, Cousin Rodney, don't you? I couldn't let a man like that get the upper hand of me."
"Of course you couldn't, dear. I'd sit on him if I were you, and sit on him hard. I'd knock him flat—and let Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay go to the deuce."
She looked at him wonderingly. "Let—who—go to the deuce?"
"I said Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay. I might have included Fanny Burnaby and the Brown girls. I meant them, of course. I suppose you've been doing a lot of worrying on their account."
"I—I haven't," she stammered. "I haven't thought of them at all."
"Then I wouldn't. They've got no legal claim on you whatever. When they put their money into your father's hands—or when other people put it there for them—they took their chances. Life is full of risks like that. You're not responsible for them, not any more than you are for the fortunes of war. If they've had bad luck, then that's their own lookout. Oh, I shouldn't have them on my mind for a minute."
She was too startled to suspect him of ruse or strategy.
"I haven't had them on my mind. It seems queer—and yet I haven't. Now that you speak of them, of course I see—" She passed her hand across her brow. There was a long, meditative silence before she resumed. "I don't know what I've been dreaming of that it didn't occur to me before. Papa and Mr. Davenant both said that I hadn't considered all the sides to the question; and I suppose that's what they were thinking of. It seems so obvious—now."
She adjusted her veil and picked up her parasol as though about to take leave; but when she rose it was only to examine, without seeing it, a plaque hanging on the wall.