If he had funked the sacrifice it would have been on his conscience all
the rest of his life. As it was, he had made it, or practically made it,
and so could take his reward without scruple.
He put this plainly before Olivia when at last she appeared. She came
slowly through the hail from the direction of the dining-room, a
blank-book and a pencil in her hand.
"I'm making an inventory," she explained. "You know that everything will
have to be sold?"
He ignored this to hurry to his account of the interview with Guion. It
had been brief, he said, and in a certain sense unsatisfactory. He laid
stress on his regret that her father should have seen fit to decline his
offer--that's what it amounted to--but he pointed out to her that that
bounder Davenant, who had doubtless counseled this refusal, would now be
the victim of his own wiles. He had overreached himself. He had taken
one of those desperate risks to which the American speculative spirit is
so often tempted--and he had pushed it too far. He would lose everything
now, and serve him right!
"I've made my offer," he went on, in an injured tone, "and they've
thrown it out. I really can't do more, now, can I?"
"You know already how I feel about that.
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