"The thing is impossible, perfectly impossible."
"I don't see why. Everything has its price and I'm offering you a pretty stiff one."
"I would rather be burned alive. Marry Mr. Inglesby? I? Why, he is impossible, perfectly impossible!"
"He is nothing of the kind. And he is very much in love with you—you amount to a grand passion with Inglesby. Also, he has twenty millions." He added dryly: "You are hard to please."
Mary Virginia waved aside grand passion and twenty millions with a gesture of ineffable disdain.
"Even if I were weak and silly enough to take you seriously, do you imagine my father would ever consent? He would despise me. He would rather see me dead."
"Oh, no, he wouldn't. Nobody can afford to despise a woman with twenty millions. It isn't in human nature. Particularly when you save Mr. James Eustis himself from coming a breakneck cropper, to say the very least."
For the moment she missed the significance of that last remark.
"I repeat that I would rather be burned alive. I despise the man!" said she, passionately.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't." His manner was a bit contemptuous. "And you'd soon get used to him. Women and cats are like that. They may squall and scratch a bit at first, but the saucer of cream reconciles them, and presently they are quite at home and purring, the sensible creatures! You'll end by liking him very well."