Lady Vera looked out at a flying brake of naked trees, the color of cigar-ash. He had lost her attention for the moment.
"I was a little fool," she said at length. "I should have listened to you, and been content to help in some other way. I am sorry."
"I'm not!" replied Doctor Dollar. "It was a very sporting folly—but everything you ever did was that!"
She shook her head sadly, as a brown river, girt with olives, flashed under the train like a child's skipping-rope.
"I haven't changed my opinions," she said, just a trifle aggressively. "But I would give my life to undo many of my actions—not only that one—many, many!" and she looked him bravely and humbly in the eyes. "So the whole thing has served me right, and will if it happens all over again."
"This blackmailing of me by that poor man!"
"It won't. I've frightened him."
"He will think of some subtler way."
"There's no subtlety in him, no power, no initiative, no anything but mere brute force," said Dollar, with a touch of that same strength and weakness in his unusually emphatic assertion. "The fellow is a deadly tool and nothing more. He knuckled under to me in a moment."