Oh, she had already cleared the ground of it! “It’s he who’s the devouring wolf? It’s he who holds your mortgages?”
The very lucidity of her interest just checked his assent. “He holds plenty of others, and he treats me very handsomely.”
She showed of a sudden an inconsequent face. “Do you call that handsome—such a condition?”
He shed surprise. “Why, I thought it was just the condition you could meet.”
She measured her inconsistency, but was not abashed. “We’re not talking of what I can meet.” Yet she found also a relief in dropping the point. “Why doesn’t he stand himself?”
“Well, like other devouring wolves, he’s not personally adored.”
“Not even,” she asked, “when he offers such liberal terms?”
Clement Yule had to explain. “I dare say he doesn’t offer them to everyone.”
“Only to you?”—at this she quite sprang. “You are personally adored; you will be still more if you stand; and that, you poor lamb, is why he wants you!”
The young man, obviously pleased to find her after all more at one with him, accepted gracefully enough the burden her sympathy imposed. “I’m the bearer of my name, I’m the representative of my family; and to my family and my name—since you’ve led me to it—this countryside has been for generations indulgently attached.”