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COVERING END
313

The young man looked quite at a loss. "Is she very big? I really didn't notice her—and moreover she's just a part of the Property. He thinks things are going too far."

She sat straight down on a stiff chair; on which, with high distinctness: "Well, they are!"

He stood before her in the discomposure of her again thus appearing to fail him. "Aren't you then a lover of justice?"

"A passionate one!" She sat there as upright as if she held the scales. "Where's the justice of your losing this house?" Generous as well as strenuous, all her fairness thrown out by her dark old high-backed seat, she put it to him as from the judicial bench. "To keep Covering, you must carry Gossage!"

The odd face he made at it might have betrayed a man dazzled. "As a renegade?"

"As a genuine Yule. What business have you to be anything else?" She had already arranged it all. "You must close with Mr. Prodmore—you must stand in the Tory interest." She hung fire a moment; then as she got up: "If you will, I'll conduct your canvass!"

He stared at the distracting picture. "That puts the temptation high!"

But she brushed the mere picture away. "Ah,