'You!' she exclaimed. Fielding nodded assent.
'Then don't do it,' Mrs. Willoughby flashed out vigorously. 'Don't think of it. Oh, I know those men in the City! Their friends get ruined, and they—well, I mustn't say anything against them, because my husband was one of them, poor dear,—but they move into larger offices. Mr. Drake has been asking you to join him?'
'He hasn't done anything of the sort. I heard of the matter through quite an independent channel. However, I am not ruined yet, and the company won't be floated for another four months. And, after all, it's my money.'
Mrs. Willoughby became quiet.
'Well,' she said, and she derived some satisfaction from the thought, 'at all events Clarice has dropped talking about him.'
Fielding laughed.
'That means that it's Mallinson's turn on the roundabout and nothing more.'
'Sidney Mallinson has been refused.'
'Refused! When?'
'On the Sunday we lunched at Beaufort Gardens.'