'I think we can manage him. But I shall not see him myself, Wych; that would be to start his pride again; and of all human passions pride is the strongest that I knowunless possibly jealousy. I must have a medium, and I think I know the right one. I propose to offer him, not carte blanche, but, say, five thousand a year for five years; on condition that during that time he neither joins nor is joined by Josephine, wherever he may be. He wants money badly, as you say. I think he will accept my offer.'
'You had better say for life,' said Wych Hazel quickly.
'No,' said Rollo smiling; 'that would be bad economy. Some day you will know what economy is; in the mean while, believe me. He is not worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars; and she is not. And if she is obliged to wait five years, she will never go to him after that. As to the rest,'and Rollo bent his head caressingly by the side of Wych Hazel's'where my regulations cannot be carried out, Hazel,do not go.'
'But Olaf'
'Well, Wych?' he said, looking at her with the grey eyes full of love, and full of delight in her, and full of admiration of her; not the less, soft as they were, full also of that expression which is called masterful when people do not like it. Wych Hazel looked up and then down, silently knotting her fingers in and out. Rollo put his lips down to hers, but waited for what she had to say. It did not come at once.
'I am trying to push myself out of sight,' she said frankly with one of her sweet laughs. 'And I am a hard one to push, sometimes. But for my worksuppose I have something to do which cannot be done so?'
'Don't do it.'
'Really? Suppose it ought to be done?'
'It is quite plain that in such a case, it ought not to be done by you.'
'You leave me no more room for discretion, than Mr. Rollo did in the old time,' said Wych Hazel soberly. 'WellI hope you will succeed with that man,' she went on in her former tone; 'but he was not in a pretty mood to-day.'