"Don't you?"
"Well--it's possible," admitted Mr. V.V., slowly, and one could see that he didn't altogether like the idea of anybody's criticizing Mr. Heth's conduct of his business. "But--ah--really I don't--"
"Couldn't we fix it, in some simple way--brace up the floor somehow?"
"Oh, yes. You'd have no trouble in fixing it.... Far as that goes."
"Don't you think you could manage to say we once?"
"Oh!" said Mr. V.V., pleased. "I could that!... I didn't know, you see, how far you cared to let me in."
Cally smiled at him over the library table.
"Hasn't it occurred to you that you are in it, that you've been right in the middle of it all along?"
He gave her one of his original looks, and said: "Well, I can't say it had.... But it's where I'd rather be than anywhere else in the world."
"You can make nice speeches, at any rate.... Do you know you're the strangest man, I believe, that ever lived?"