'Nevertheless,' he said, in a soothing way, 'my errand concerns Miss Donne.'
'Well then,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'don't! That's all I have to say, and it's my last word. She doesn't care for you. I don't want to be unkind, but I daresay you have made yourself think all sorts of things.'
She felt that this was a great concession, to a Greek and an adventurer.
'Excuse me,' said Logotheti quietly, 'but we are talking at cross purposes. What I have to say concerns Miss Donne's financial interests—her fortune, if you like to call it so.'
Mrs. Rushmore's suspicions were immediately confirmed.
'She has none,' said she, with a snap as if she were shutting up a safe with a spring lock.
'That depends on what you call a fortune,' answered the Greek coolly. 'In Paris most people would think it quite enough. It is true that it is in litigation.'
'I really cannot see how that can interest you,' said Mrs. Rushmore in an offended tone.
'It interests me a good deal. I have come to see you in order to propose that you should compromise the suit about that invention.'
Mrs. Rushmore drew herself up against the straight back of the garden chair and glared at him in polite wrath.