Sir Percival paused and pensively cut down a weed or two with his walking stick.
"Hum," he said slowly. "As I thought."
"Do you mean honestly by the girl?"
"Your last words are quite correct," said the baronet, coolly. "Buy the girl--I mean to do that, Brooking."
"You frankly avow that is your object?" began Brooking, genuinely shocked.
"Tut--tut!" interrupted his companion, good humoredly. "She is a pretty creature, is n't she? Clever, too, in her own innocent, foolish, little way. For her smiles and bread-and-buttery love--a welcome change, by the way, from the London brand of petulant passion--I 'll give her a carriage, horses, fine dresses, a necklace or two, and lastly my own charming self for--er--for probably as long a time as several months."
"And then, what will become of her?"
"Really, I don't know," answered Sir Percival. "Can't imagine, and I shan't bore myself by wondering. Perhaps she will marry some clodhopper like this Tom Moore. No doubt he would think her doubly valuable when I have finished with her."
"You are not in earnest," stammered Brooking, incredulously.
"Quite in earnest, my dear old chap. Ah, you think that I will not succeed? Pshaw, Brooking! Not here, perhaps, in this deliciously moral atmosphere, but elsewhere, yes. And I intend that she shall be elsewhere. Brooking, I shall fetch this rural beauty to London."