when the thing was done. Now what is there so brutal in that, Madame
Cordova?'

Margaret turned on him almost fiercely.

'Why do you tell me all this?' she asked. 'For heaven's sake let poor
Miss Bamberger rest in her grave!'

'Since you ask me why,' answered Mr. Van Torp, unmoved,' I tell you
all this because I want you to know more about me than you do. If you
did, you'd hate me less. That's the plain truth. You know very well
that there's nobody like you, and that if I'd judged I had the
slightest chance of getting you I would no more have thought of
marrying Miss Bamberger than of throwing a million dollars into the
sea after that book, or ten million, and that's a great deal of
money.'

'I ought to be flattered,' said Margaret with scorn, still facing the
wind.

'No. I'm not given to flattery, and money means something real to me,
because I've fought for it, and got it. Your regular young lover will
always call you his precious treasure, and I don't see much difference
between a precious treasure and several million dollars. I'm logical,
you see. I tell you I'm logical, that's all.'

'I daresay. I think we have been talking here long enough. Shall we go
back?'

She had got her anger under again. She detested Mr. Van Torp, but she