“Nothing?” she repeated.
“No,” he said. “Nothing, so far as you are concerned. Just go on being beautiful and charming—as you cannot help being—and leave it to me to do the rest. If this is not a serious business, if his lordship is really only scratched, why——” He laughed lazily. “If, on the contrary, he is badly hit, and means business, means to make her the future Marchioness of Stoyle, why we must deal with the young lady herself.”
“Deal with her?” she asked, with an eager interest she did not attempt to conceal.
He nodded at the scenery.
“Yes. There are two ways of going to work, each suited to the subject we are speaking on. Money and moral suasion. It may be money in this case; if so——”
“I am rich,” she said, in a quiet undertone. “If the creature requires to be bought; if——”
“You will do it? Exactly. But the moral suasion?”
“I will leave to you, who have so much of it,” she said, with a half-sneer.
He laughed softly.
“So they all say, dear lady, but, alas! I am so tender-hearted that I can never bring myself to use it! I am all heart, all heart!” and he laid his hand on the spot in which the organ is situated, and beamed at her. Then, without moving a muscle, he went on: “And so, dear Lady Grace, we had the poor children to an evening party, and gave them tea and buns, and I am sure you would have been melted to tears at the sight of their overbrimming happiness.”