"What would become of Lord Iffield if she were suddenly to come out in them?
What indeed would become of every one, what would become of everything ?" This was an enquiry that Dawling was evidently unprepared to meet, and I completed it by saying at last: "My dear fellow, for that matter, what would become of _you_ ?" Once more he turned on me his good green eyes.

"Oh I shouldn't mind!" The tone of his words somehow made his ugly face beautiful, and I discovered at this moment how much I really liked him.

None the less, at the same time, perversely and rudely, I felt the droll side of our discussion of such alternatives.

It made me laugh out and say to him while I laughed: "You'd take her even with those things of Mrs.
Meldrum's ?" He remained mournfully grave; I could see that he was surprised at my rude mirth.

But he summoned back a vision of the lady at Folkestone and conscientiously replied: "Even with those things of Mrs.Meldrum's." I begged him not to resent my laughter, which but exposed the fact that we had built a monstrous castle in the air.