“I do.”
“What for?”
“To adopt.”
“Will you bring her up a lady?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose the lady of the Pavilion put you up to this.”
At this the man’s two eyes glared at her with so fierce and red a light from under his shaggy eyebrows that the woman, bold as she was, saw that she would spoil her bargain if she persisted in this reference.
“You’re a gentleman,” she went on composedly; “in other words a devil, and if you want anything from me you’ve got to pay dear for it.”
In unspeakable loathing it seemed as if he could find nothing to say to her, and he made a gesture for her to continue.
“I might set a price on her,” she went on in mocking, reflective tones, “and you’d pay me today, and to-morrow it would be gone. No; you’d better be my banker for life. I draw on you when I choose.”