etail--"

"Oh, don't try to make me explain that. In the first place, I don't
know; and in the second, I shouldn't tell you if I did. I'm merely
giving you the facts. I think you're entitled to know _them_."

"So I should have said. Are there many more? I've had a lot since I
landed. I thought I must have heard pretty well all there was--"

"Probably you had, except just that. I imagine Olivia found it
difficult to speak of, and so I'm doing it for her."

"Why should she find it difficult to speak of? It's a mere matter of
business, I suppose."

"If it's business to give Cousin Henry what would be nearly a hundred
thousand pounds in English money, with no prospect that any one can see
of his ever getting it back--that is, not unless old Madame de
Melcourt--"

"Oh, I say! Then he's one of your beastly millionaires, by Jove!--grind
the noses off the poor, and that sort of thing, to play
Haroun-al-Raschid with the cash."

"Not in the least. He never ground the nose off any one; and as for
being a millionaire, father says that what he's done for Cousin Henry
will pretty well clean him out."

"All the same, he's probably done it with a jolly sharp eye to the main
chance."

"Oh, I dare say his motives weren't altogether altruistic. Only it's a
little difficult to see where the main chance comes in."

"Then what the deuce is he up to?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. I repeat that I'm only giving you the
facts. You must interpret them for yourself."

He looked thoughtful. Drusilla plucked a scarlet dahlia and fastened it
in her dress, after which they strolled back slowly to the middle of the
lawn. Here Ashley said:

"Has all this got anything to do with Olivia? I wish you wouldn't make
mysteries."

"I'm not making mysteries. I'm telling you what's happened just as it
occurred. He advanced the money to Cousin Henry, and that's all I know
about it. If I draw any inferences--"

"Well?"

"I'm just as likely to be wrong as right."

"Then you _have_ drawn inferences?"

"Who wouldn't? I should think you'd be drawing them yourself."

They wandered on a few yards, when he stopped again. "Look here," he
said, with a sort of appealing roughness, "you're quite straight with
me, aren't you?"

The rich, surging color came swiftly into her face, as wine seen through
something dark and transparent. Her black eyes shone like jet. She would
have looked tragic had it not been for her fixed, steady smile.

"Have