“Not in the least.  You can look round at once.”

She rang the bell.  On her way to it she gathered up some books that were lying out of sight and laid them on the table.

“These,” she said to Rickman, “belong to the library.  They must go with the rest.”

He looked at them.  One was an Aldine Dante, he had seen her reading it.  He took Pilkington aside and said something to him in a tone which Lucia could not hear.  Her hand was on the door when Pilkington sprang forward.

“One moment, Miss Harden.  Everything must be sold in the regular way, but if you’ll tell me of any books you’ve a special fancy for, I’ll make a note of them and buy them in for you.”  He paused, awaiting the breath of inspiration.  It came.  “For—­for a merely nominal sum.”

To do Dicky justice this delicate idea greatly commended itself to his good nature.  Business is business, but not willingly did Dicky inflict pain, least of all upon a young and pretty woman.  Besides he had an eye to his reputation; he was disposed to do this thing handsomely.  Rickman envied him his inspiration, his “merely nominal sum.”

“Thank you.  The books were not mine,” said Lucia in spite of another meaning look from her ally.

“Quite so.  But I should disregard that if I were you.  Anyhow you can think it over, and if you change your mind you can let me or Mr Rickman know before the sale.”

Lucia looked down at him from her height.  “I shall not change my mind.  If I want to keep any of the books, I can buy them from Mr. Rickman.”

She turned to Rickman in the doorway.  “All the same, it was kind of you to think of it.”  She said it very distinctly, so that Mr. Pilkington could hear.

Rickman followed her out of the room and closed the door behind them.  She turned on him eyes positively luminous with trust.  It was as if she had abandoned the leading of her intellect and flung the reins on the neck of her intuition.

“I was right, wasn’t I?  I would so much rather buy them back from you.”

“From my father?”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

He smiled sadly.  “I’m afraid it isn’t, quite.  Why didn’t you accept his offer?”

“I couldn’t.”  She shuddered slightly.  Her face expressed her deep and desperate repugnance.  “I can buy them back from you.  He is really arranging with your father, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”  It was the third time that she had appealed from Pilkington to him, and there was a profound humiliation in the thought that at this precise moment the loathsome Dicky might be of more solid use to her than he.

“Well then,” she said almost triumphantly.  “I shall be safe.  You will do your best for me.”

It was a statement, but he met it as if it had been a question.

“I will indeed.”

He saw that it was in identifying his father with him that she left it to their honour.