"I have."
"The matter is placed beyond the pale of my discussion?"
"It is."
Mr. Winton turned to Harry with a little gesture of amusement.
"Then, Talfourd, we shall have to seek for another capitalist, and as that is not a bird which is easy to find, 'The Gordian Knot' will have to be shelved for a still further indefinite period. Let's trust that some of us will live to see it produced."
In her turn Margaret faced Harry with an air of penitence.
"I'm so sorry, but I would rather that it were never produced at all than that it should owe anything to that woman--and you know how I have set my heart on its success."
He tried to comfort her, as if the loss were hers.
"'The Gordian Knot' won't spoil by keeping; don't let it trouble you a little bit; dismiss Mrs. Lamb from your mind as if she had never been. She's nothing to you, or to me, or to any of us; she's just--like that!"
He snapped his fingers in the air, as if by the action he expressed her valuation. Margaret answered with an enigmatic smile.