"The sum I've fixed upon would be, I may mention, substantial, and I should of course be prepared with a clear statement--a very definite pledge--of my intentions." "So much the better! Only"-- Vanderbank suddenly pulled himself up--"to get it she MUST marry ?" "It's not in my interest to allow you to suppose she needn't, and it's only because of my intensely wanting her marriage that I've spoken to you." "And on the ground also with it"-- Vanderbank so far concurred--"of your quite taking for granted my only having to put myself forward ?" If his friend seemed to cast about it proved but to be for the fullest expression.

Nothing in fact could have been more charged than the quiet way in which he presently said: "My dear boy, I back you." Vanderbank clearly was touched by it.

"How extraordinarily kind you are to me!" Mr.Longdon's silence appeared to reply that he was willing to let it go for that, and the young man next went on: "What it comes to then--as you put it--is that it's a way for me to add something handsome to my income." Mr.Longdon sat for a little with his eyes attached to the green field of the billiard-table, vivid in the spreading suspended lamplight.

"I think I ought to tell you the figure I have in mind." Another person present might have felt rather taxed either to determine the degree of provocation represented by Vanderbank's considerate smile, or to say if there was an appreciable interval before he rang out: "I think, you know, you oughtn't to do anything of the sort.

Let that alone, please.