“It seemed to me a very simple and obvious proposal.”

“I don’t know much about business,” said Kitty, “but I can think of a much more simple and obvious one.  Why can’t your people buy in the library and sell it again for Miss Harden on commission?”

“Do you suppose I haven’t thought of that?  It would be very simple and obvious if it rested with me, but I’m afraid my father mightn’t see it in the same light.  You see, the thing doesn’t lie between Miss Harden and me, but between my father and Mr. Pilkington.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s this way.  My father won’t be buying the library from Miss Harden, but from Mr. Pilkington.  And—­my father is a man of business.”

“And you most certainly are not.”

“So he isn’t likely to give any more for it than he can help.”

“Of course not.”

“Well, but—­do you know what the library was valued at?”

Kitty did, and she would have blurted it out had not an inner voice told her to be discreet for once.  He took her silence for a confession of ignorance.

“Would you think a thousand pounds an absurdly high valuation?”

“I don’t know.”

Kitty tried to banish all expression from her face.  She really knew very little about business and was as yet unaware of the necessary publicity of bills of sale.  The suspicion crossed her mind that Rickman, in his father’s interests, might be trying to pump her as to the smallest sum that need be offered.

“Because,” he added, “it isn’t.  Miss Harden stands to lose something like three thousand pounds by it.”

Kitty’s evil surmises vanished utterly.  “Good Heavens!” she exclaimed, “how do you make that out?”

“It’s only the difference between what the library ought to fetch and what will be given for it.  Of course no dealer could give the full value; still, between one thousand and four thousand there’s a considerable difference.”

“And who pockets it?”

“My fa—­the dealer, if he succeeds in selling again to the best advantage.  He might not, and my father, as it happens, considers that he’s taking a great risk.  But I know more about it than he does, and I don’t agree with him.  That’s why I don’t want him to get hold of those books if I can help it.”

Kitty was thoughtful.

“You see,” he continued, “I know he’d like to do what he thinks generous under the circumstances, but he isn’t interested in Miss Harden, and he is interested in the Harden library.  It’s a chance that a dealer like him only gets once in a lifetime and I’m afraid it isn’t in human nature to let it go.”

“But,” said Kitty wildly, “he must let it go.  You must make him.  Do you mean to say you’re going to sit and look on calmly while Miss Harden loses three thousand pounds?”

“I’m not looking on calmly.  On the contrary, I’ve lost my head.”

“What’s the good of losing your head, if Miss Harden loses her money?  What do you propose to do besides losing your head?  Lose time I suppose?  As if you hadn’t lost enough already.”