"
But Mrs. Travers was not so easily to be disposed of. For some reason
or other, she had shown a disposition to attach herself to Wingrave.
"Please put me in my chair," she said to him, holding out her rug and
cushion. "No! Not you, Mr. Aynesworth. Mr. Wingrave understands so
much better how to wrap me up. Thanks! Won't you sit down yourself?
It's much better for you out here than in the smoking room--and we
might go on with our argument."
"I thought," Wingrave remarked, accepting her invitation after a
moment's hesitation, "that we were to abandon it."
"That was before dinner," she answered, glancing sideways at him. "I
feel braver now."
"You are prepared," he remarked, "for unconditional surrender?"
She looked at him again. She had rather nice eyes, quite dark and very
soft, and she was a great believer in their efficacy.
"Of my argument?"
He did not answer her for a moment. He had turned his head slightly
towards her, and though his face was, as usual, expressionless, and
his eyes cold and hard, she found nevertheless something of meaning in
his steady regard. There was a flush in her cheek when she looked
away.
"I am afraid," she remarked, "that you are rather a terrible person."
"You flatter me," he murmured. "I am really quite harmless!"
"Not from conviction then, I am sure," she remarked.
"Perhaps not," he admitted. "Let us call it from lack of enterprise!
The virtues are all very admirable things, but it is the men and women
with vices who have ruled the world.
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