What did this slow-coach of a man mean?——"What risks?" Amory asked abruptly.
"Well, say risks to Cosimo as proprietor."
"You mean he might lose his money?" she said, with a glance round the satiny triceps and the apple-bud of an elbow.
"Well—does he want to lose his money?—What I mean is, that we aren't paying our way—we've scarcely any advertisements, you see——"
"I think that what you mean is that we ought to become Liberals?" There was a little ring in Amory's voice.
Mr. Strong made no reply.
"Or Fabians, perhaps?"
Still Mr. Strong did not answer.
"Because if you do mean that, I can only say I'm—disappointed in you!"
Now those who knew Edgar Strong the best knew how exceedingly sensitive he was to those very words—"I'm disappointed in you." In his large and varied experience they were invariably the prelude to the sack. And he very distinctly did not want the sack—not, at any rate, until he had got something better. Perhaps he reasoned within himself that, of himself and Prang, he would be the more discreet editor, and so lifted the question a whole plane morally higher. Perhaps, if it came to the next worst, he was prepared to accept the foisting of Prang upon him and to take his chance. Anyway, his face grew very serious, and he reached for the footstool, drew it close up to Amory's couch, and sat down on it.