"Much?" she asked impulsively.
"Twenty pounds." Milbanke felt himself colour. Then he rallied his courage. "But that isn't all," he added quickly. "I have something worse to confess. When I came down to breakfast this morning I found a cheque lying on my plate. I felt intensely remorseful, as you can imagine; and determined to make reparation. After breakfast I broached the subject to Denis; I begged him to allow me to cancel our play by tearing up the cheque. He was furiously angry; and I, instead of showing the courage of my opinion, was actually weak enough to succumb. Now, what punishment do you think I deserve?" He paused, looking at her anxiously.
For a while she looked steadily ahead, absorbed in her own thoughts; then slowly she looked back at him with interested, incredulous eyes.
"Don't English people pay when they lose?" she asked after a long pause.
Again he coloured.
"Why, yes," he said hurriedly. "Yes, of course, only——"
"Only what?"
"Nothing—nothing. It was only that I thought you wanted——"
"I wanted you not to encourage him. I never wanted you to think that he isn't a gentleman."
She made the statement with perfect naturalness, as though the subject was one of common, everyday discussion. According to her code of honour, she was justified in putting every possible bar to her father's weakness; but where the bar had proved useless, where the weakness had conquered and the deed she disapproved of had been accomplished, then the matter, to her thinking, had passed out of her hands. Her judgment ceased to be individual and became the judgment of her race.