“I think,” the Marquis said slowly, “you would find that not only Diona but any other respectable milkmaid who has spent all her life in the country would be apprehensive and somewhat shocked by what you have suggested.”
“Shocked?” Roderic queried.
Then, as if it had suddenly sunk into him that his uncle had accentuated the word “respectable,” he understood what was being said to him.
He moved from the arm of the chair, on which he had been sitting and bent forward to say pleadingly,
“Please, Miss Diona, I desperately need your help, and it would be too cruel of you to refuse me without thinking it over very carefully.”
Diona did not reply and after a moment he added, “You say you have to earn money and this is a very easy way to do so. I will make it fifty pounds if you will agree to
