"And no backsliding?" Phinuit suggested with a leer.
"Ah! you must not ask me to tell you everything. That is a matter between me and my conscience."
"Well," Phinuit hazarded with a good show of confidence, "I guess you won't tell us to go plumb to hell, will you?"
"No; I promise to be more original than that."
"Then you refuse!" Liane breathed tensely.
"Oh, I haven't said that! You must give me time to think this over."
"I knew that would be his answer," Monk proclaimed, pride in his perspicuity shaping the set of his eyebrows. "That is why I was firm that we should wait no longer. You have four days in which to make up your mind, monsieur."
"I shall need them."
"I don't see why," Phinuit argued: "it's an open and shut proposition, if ever there was one."
"But you are asking me to renounce something upon which I have set much store for many years, monsieur. I can't be expected to do that in an hour or even a day."