"Still," she insisted, "we might as well have them. Second, it's the more prudent of two rather disadvantageous courses. Third—to quote your own words—you're head over heels in love with her. It's easy to see that now, and now another of these reasons is uppermost in your mind; but it's also easy to see that none of them makes a conclusive appeal to Olivia Guion. That's the point."
"The point is that I'm in love with her, and—if it's not claiming too much—she with me. We've nothing else to consider."
"You haven't. She has. She has all the things I've just hinted at—and ever so many more; besides which," she added, taking a detached, casual tone, "I suppose she has to make up her mind one way or another as to what she's going to do about Peter Davenant."
The crow's-foot wrinkles about his eyes deepened to a frown of inquiry. "About Peter—who?"
Drusilla still affected a casual tone. "Oh? Hasn't she told you about him?"
"Not a word. Who is he?"
She nodded in the direction of the house. "He's up-stairs with Cousin Henry."
"The big fellow who was here just now? That—lumpkin?"
"Yes," she said, dryly, "that—lumpkin. It was he who gave Cousin Henry the money to meet his liabilities."
"So he's the Fairy Prince? He certainly doesn't look it."