"Well—if you think that Mr. Jewdwine is the man to deal so lightly with two hundred pounds, let alone the thousand! Really, that's the quaintest thing you've done yet. May I ask if this is the way you generally do business?"
"No, I can't say that it is."
"Well, well, you were very safe."
"Safe? I don't want to be safe. Don't you see how horrible it is for me? I'd give anything if he or anyone else would come in now and walk over us."
"Still, I don't wonder that you got no answer to your very remarkable proposal."
"It seemed to me a very simple and obvious proposal."
"I don't know much about business," said Kitty, "but I can think of a much more simple and obvious one. Why can't your people buy in the library and sell it again for Miss Harden on commission?"
"Do you suppose I haven't thought of that? It would be very simple and obvious if it rested with me, but I'm afraid my father mightn't see it in the same light. You see, the thing doesn't lie between Miss Harden and me, but between my father and Mr. Pilkington."
"I don't understand."
"It's this way. My father won't be buying the library from Miss Harden, but from Mr. Pilkington. And—my father is a man of business."