His own processes, in spite of a marked earnestness, were much less rapid. "But if I arrange with anybody----"
He looked surprised at her speaking as if he had half-a-dozen. "Yes--that's the worst."
"Certainly--the worst!" And she gave a happy laugh that made him stare.
He broke into quite a different one. "You speak as if its being the worst made it the best!"
"It does--for me. You don't," said Mrs. Gracedew, "perform any engagement."
He required a moment to take it in; then something extraordinary leaped into his face. "He lets me off?"
Ah, she could ring out now! "He lets you off."
It lifted him high, but only to drop him with an audible thud. "Oh, I see--I lose my house!"
"Dear, no--_that_ doesn't follow!" She spoke as if the absurdity he indicated were the last conceivable, but there was a certain want of sharpness of edge in her expression of the alternative. "You arrange with _me_ to keep it."
There was quite a corresponding want, clearly, in the image presented to the Captain--of which, for a moment, he seemed with difficulty to follow the contour. "How do I arrange?"
"Well, we must think," said Mrs. Gracedew; "we must wait." She spoke as if this were a detail for which she had not yet had much attention; only bringing out, however, the next instant in an encouraging cry and as if it were by itself almost a solution: "We must find some way!" She might have been talking to a reasonable child.
But even reasonable children ask too many questions. "Yes--and what way _can_ we find?" Clement Yule, glancing about him, was so struck with the absence of ways that he appeared to remember with something of regret how different it had been before. "With Prodmore it was simple enough. You see I could marry his daughter."
Mrs. Gracedew was silent just long enough for her soft ironic smile to fill the cup of the pause. "_Could_ you?"
It was as if he had tasted in the words the wine at the brim; for he gave, under the effect of them, a sudden headshake and an awkward laugh. "Well, never perhaps _that_ exactly--when it came to the point. But I had to, you see----" It was difficult to say just what.
She took advantage of it, looking hard, but not seeing at all. "You had to----?"
"Well," he repeated ruefully, "think a lot about it. You didn't suspect that?"
