"Oh, he's a decent sort."
"Not going to back out, eh?"
"Not at all; just the other way: he wants to step in and take everything off—off our hands."
"You don't say so. Then he's what you say—a decent sort."
"He's more than that," Davenant heard himself saying, to his own surprise. "He's a fine specimen of his type, and the type itself—"
"Is superb," the old man concluded. "That's about what I supposed he'd be. You could hardly imagine Olivia Guion picking out any other kind—especially as it's a kind that's as thick as blackberries in their army."
Davenant corroborated this by a brief account of what Ashley proposed to do. Light gleamed in the old man's eyes and a smile broke the shaggy crevice between his beard and mustache as he listened.
"Splendid! Splendid!" he commented, now at one point and now at another of the information Peter was imparting. "Sell his estate and pay up? That's downright sporting, isn't it?"
"Oh, he's sporting enough."
"And what a grand thing for you to get your money back. I thought you would some day—if Vic de Melcourt ever came to hear of what you'd done; but I didn't expect it so soon."