"I don't know--for a generous sacrifice."

"Why should it be generous? What's at stake?" Peter demanded,
leaning against the doorpost as she stood on the landing.

"I don't know what, but I feel as if something or other were in
peril. Burn them up!" she exclaimed with shining eyes.

"Ah, you ask too much--I'm so curious about them!"

"Well, I won't ask more than I ought, and I'm much obliged to you for
your promise to be quiet. I trust to your discretion. Good-by."

"You ought to REWARD my discretion," said Baron, coming out to the
landing.

She had partly descended the staircase and she stopped, leaning
against the baluster and smiling up at him. "Surely you've had your
reward in the honour of my visit."

"That's delightful as far as it goes. But what will you do for me if
I burn the papers?"

Mrs. Ryves considered a moment. "Burn them first and you'll see!"

On this she went rapidly downstairs, and Baron, to whom the answer
appeared inadequate and the proposition indeed in that form grossly
unfair, returned to his room. The vivacity of her interest in a
question in which she had discoverably nothing at stake mystified,
amused and, in addition, irresistibly charmed him. She was delicate,