"Thank you," he remarks, with immense dignity. "I understand," with cutting irony, "the reason of your spite. You wanted Mr. Langton's money yourself."
"Not a bit of it," decidedly. "Thank goodness, I know how to earn my own living. Not but that Uncle Langton has treated me unfairly, though. I am as near kin to him as Maud. My father was his own brother. Why should he make her his heiress, and marry her to the son of his old sweetheart, cutting me off with a beggarly invitation to spend three weeks, and be her bride's-maid?"
"Why don't you tell him that?" he queries, watching the rich color deepen on the delicate cheek.
"I don't care to," with careless indifference. "I don't want his money."
"No—do you mean to say you do not care for all this?" He glances around him at the spacious white villa, set in the midst of a green, flower-gemmed lawn, shaded by stately trees. "Only think, my lady disdain: A summer home in these grand old mountains, a winter palace in Washington, a cottage by the sea, and a fabulous bank account; does it all count for nothing in your eyes?"
"Yes," pertly, "if, like poor Maud, I had to take you as an incumbrance with it all!"
He flushes with wounded vanity and anger.
"The feeling is mutual," he retorts, under the spur of pride. "If I had to take you with Mr. Langton's money, it might go to found an idiot asylum."
"Vane Charteris, I hate you!" she exclaims, with a flash of childish passion.
"I take it as a compliment," he replies, with a profound bow.