"Oh thank you. My niece, I seem to feel, does for me. But it will be capital to find you there."
"I think it ought to make you feel," she said after a moment, "that I am easy to treat."
But he shook his head again; he wouldn't have it. "You've not come to that yet."
"One has to be so bad for it?"
"Well, I don't think I've ever come to it—to 'ease' of treatment. I doubt if it's possible. I've not, if it is, found any one bad enough. The ease, you see, is for you."
"I see—I see."
They had an odd friendly, but perhaps the least bit awkward pause on it; after which Sir Luke asked: "And that clever lady—she goes with you?"
"Mrs. Stringham? Oh dear, yes. She'll stay with me, I hope, to the end."
He had a cheerful blankness. "To the end of what?"
"Well—of everything."