She courted, however, frankly enough, the strict truth. “Too bad to tell?”
He indulged in another pensive fidget, then left her to judge. “He wants me to give up——” Yet again he faltered.
“To give up what?” What could it be, she appeared to ask, that was barely nameable?
He quite blushed to her indeed as he came to the point. “My fundamental views.”
She was disappointed—she had waited for more. “Nothing but them?”
He met her with astonishment. “Surely they’re quite enough, when one has unfortunately”—he rather ruefully smiled—“so very many!”
She laughed aloud; this was frankly so odd a plea. “Well, I’ve a neat collection too, but I’d ‘swap,’ as they say in the West, the whole set——!” She looked about the hall for something of equivalent price; after which she pointed, as it caught her eye, to the great cave of the fireplace. “I’d take that set!”
The young man scarcely followed. “The fire-irons?”
“For the whole fundamental lot!” She gazed with real yearning at the antique group. “They’re three hundred years old. Do you mean to tell me your wretched ‘views’——?”
“Have anything like that age? No, thank God,” Clement Yule laughed, “my views—wretched as you please!—are quite in their prime! They’re a hungry little family that has got to be fed. They keep me awake at night.”