He took his elbows off the gate, and bowed in acknowledgment of the polite speech. "Oh, you know what I mean," she said hurriedly.
"Yes, I know. And, except for the kindness of your fairy godmother, I believe you are perfectly right. That, of course, is a different question."
Barbara would not answer what she fancied might be a sneer. "You see the place at its worst," she said, "and there is nobody to care for it; everything is neglected and going to ruin. Don't you think it would be different if it belonged to some one who loved it? Why don't you make your fortune," she exclaimed, with sanguine, bright-eyed directness, as if the fortune were an easy certainty, "and come back and set everything right? Don't you think you could care for Mitchelhurst if——"
She would have finished her sentence readily enough, but Reynold caught it up.
"If!" he said, with a sudden startled significance in his tone. Then, with an air of prompt deference, "Shall I go and make the fortune at once, Miss Strange? Shall I? Yes, I think I could care for Mitchelhurst, as you say, if—" He smiled. "One might do much with a fortune, no doubt."
"Make it then," said Barbara, conscious of a faint and undefined embarrassment.
"Must it be a very big one?"
"Oh, I think it may as well be a tolerable size, while you are about it. Hadn't we better be moving on?"
Mr. Harding assented. "Where are we going now?"