Do you know"-- and she laid her small head on one side and smiled at him out of her pretty doll's eyes--"do you know that there are very few things I might not be persuaded to pardon you?
Perhaps"-- with laughing audacity--"there are not any at all.
Try, if you please." "Then you surely will forgive me for what I have come to ask you," he said lightly.

"Won't you ?" "Yes," she said, her pink-and-white prettiness challenging him from every delicate feature--"yes--I will pardon you--on one condition." "And what is that, Mrs.Fane ?" "That you are going to ask me something quite unpardonable!" she said with a daring little laugh.

"For if it's anything less improper than an impropriety I won't forgive you.

Besides, there'd be nothing to forgive.
So please begin, Captain Selwyn." "It's only this," he said: "I am wondering whether you would do anything for me ?" "_Any_thing! _Merci_! Isn't that extremely general, Captain Selwyn?
But you never can tell; ask me." So he bent forward, his clasped hands between his knees, and told her very earnestly of his fears about Gerald, asking her to use her undoubted influence with the boy to shame him from the card-tables, explaining how utterly disastrous to him and his family his present course was.
"He is very fond of you, Mrs.Fane--and you know how easy it is for a boy to be laughed out of excesses by a pretty woman of experience.

You see I am desperately put to it or I would never have ventured to trouble you--" "I see," she said, looking at him out of eyes bright with disappointment.
"Could you help us, then ?" he asked pleasantly.
"Help _us_, Captain Selwyn?
Who is the 'us,' please ?" "Why, Gerald and me--and his family," he added, meeting her eyes.