"Chili," said Mr. Mudge; and he looked at the cheque to see that the ink was quite dry. Perhaps Mr. Mudge's voice was a trifle too unconcerned. Perhaps there was something a little too suggestive in his examination of his cheque. Perhaps he kept his eyes too deliberately from Callon's face. At all events, Callon became suddenly suspicious. There flashed into his mind by some trick of memory a picture--a picture of Mr. Mudge and Pamela Mardale talking earnestly together upon a couch in a drawing-room, and of himself sitting at a card-table, fixed there till the game was over, though he knew well that the earnest conversation was aimed against himself. He started, he looked at Mudge in perplexity.
"Well?" said Mudge.
"Wait a moment!"
Pamela Mardale was Millie Stretton's friend. There was that incident in the hall--Millie Stretton coming down the stairs and Pamela in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece. Finally there was Pamela's persistent presence at Millie Stretton's house this afternoon. One by one the incidents gathered in his recollections and fitted themselves together and explained each other. Was this offer a pretext to get him out of the way? Callon, after all, was not a fool, and he asked himself why in the world Mr. Mudge should, just at this moment when he was in desperate straits, offer him 2000l. a year to superintend a railway in Chili?
"Well?" said Mudge again.
"I must have time to think over the proposition," replied Callon. He meant that he must have time to obtain an interview with Millie Stretton. But Mudge was ready for him.
"Certainly," said he. "That is only reasonable. It is seven o'clock now. You dine with me at eight. Give me your answer then."
"I should like till to-morrow morning," said Callon.
Mr. Mudge shook his head.
"That, I am afraid, is impossible. We shall need all tomorrow to make the necessary arrangements and to talk over your duties. For if you undertake the work you must leave England on the day after."