"Is there no way out of it?"
Mr. Quest drank a little claret before he answered. "Yes," he said, "I
think that there is, if only you will take it."
"What way?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, though as I said just now, the mortgagees of an estate as a
body are merely a business corporation, and look at things from a
business point of view only, you must remember that they are composed
of individuals, and that individuals can be influenced if they can be
got at. For instance, Cossey and Son are an abstraction and harshly
disposed in their abstract capacity, but Mr. Edward Cossey is an
individual, and I should say, so far as this particular matter is
concerned, a benevolently disposed individual. Now Mr. Edward Cossey
is not himself at the present moment actually one of the firm of
Cossey and Son, but he is the hair of the head of the house, and of
course has authority, and, what is better still, the command of
money."
"I understand," said Ida. "You mean that my father should try to win
over Mr. Edward Cossey. Unfortunately, to be frank, he dislikes him,
and my father is not a man to keep his dislikes to himself."
"People generally do dislike those to whom they are crushingly
indebted; your father dislikes Mr. Cossey because his name is Cossey,
and for no other reason.
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