'Properly secured?'
'To be sure, child.'
'On your word?' with a sudden glance at him. 'Of course, I could not ask better security! Surely, sir, there's but one thing to be said. 'Tis too generous, too handsome!'
'Tut-tut!' he answered, wondering at her way of taking it.
'Far too handsome--seeing that I have no claim on you, Sir George, and have only put you to great expense.'
'Pooh! Pooh!'
'And--trouble. A vast deal of trouble,' she repeated in an odd tone of raillery, while her eyes, grown hard and mocking, raked him mercilessly. 'So much for so little! I could not--I could not accept it. A hundred guineas a year, Sir George, from one in your position to one in mine, would only lay me open to the tongue of slander. You had better say--fifty.'
'Oh, no!'
'Or--thirty, I am sure thirty were ample! Say thirty guineas a year, dear sir; and leave me my character.'
'Nonsense,' he answered, a trifle discomfited. Strange, she was seizing her old position. The weapon he had wrought for her punishment was being turned against himself.