"Easily. A little give and take, and the thing was done."
"More give than take, I am told."
"Perhaps so, but better that than fighting, and bad blood, and ruinous lawyers' fees."
Mr. Graythorne winced and grew red in the face, and before he could recover himself Rufus had slipped out of the room.
It did not take him long to reach the street in which Madeline lived. He looked down its long length and gave a little sigh of relief. It was not a street of mansions. It was unpretentious and comparatively obscure.
His heart was beating very fast when he walked slowly up the steps and rang the door-bell. He felt as though the supreme moment of his life had come.
He was shown into a room that harmonised with the street, quiet, cosy, comfortable, but quite unpretentious. He had not to wait many moments. Almost before he had time to turn round, the door was pushed open, and Madeline stood before him, bright, winning, smiling, and radiantly beautiful.
There was no trace of stiffness or embarrassment in her manner. Indeed, her greeting was more cordial than he had dared hope for. The embarrassment was on his side; he felt he had undertaken a task that would tax all his nerve.
"It is like old times to see you again," she said, in her old frank, ingenuous way. "Do you remember our last long walk over the downs?"
"Then you have not forgotten?" he replied, with a little sigh of relief.