“I don't know,” said she, with a stolid look.
“Are you to buy them?”
“I don't know.”
“He will scarcely surrender them out of any impulse of generosity?”
“I don't know,” said she, again; and over her features there was a sickly pallor that changed all their expression, and made her look even years older than she was. He looked at her compassionately, for there was that in her face that might well have challenged pity.
“But, Loo, dearest,” said he, encouragingly, “place the affair in my hands, and see if I cannot bring it to a good ending.”
“He makes it a condition to treat with none but myself, and there is a cowardice in this of which he knows all the advantage.”
“It must be a question of money, after all. It is a matter of figures.”
“He would say not. At the very moment of driving his hardest bargain he would interpose some reference to what he is pleased to call 'his feelings.' I told him that even Shylock did not insult his victim with a mock sympathy, nor shed false tears over the pain his knife was about to inflict.”
“It was not the way to conciliate him, Loo.”