"Nonsense, nonsense," the young man answered with the desperate exasperation of the neurotic. "My f—father's not like that."
CHAPTER III
ANNE CASPAR
Edward Caspar, something of the scholar, something of the artist, even a little of the saint, was notoriously bad at keeping secrets.
"Old Ned leaks," his friends at Harrow and Trinity used to say. The charge was unfortunately true. It was because he had a secret it was important he should keep that, knowing his own weakness, he had settled in Old Town, to be out of danger.
Up there on the hill he would meet none of his quondam friends, who, if they came to Beachbourne at all, would go to one of the fine hotels in New Town along the sea front by the Wish.
But Nature, which has no mercy on weakness in any form, was too much for the soft young man.
It was barely a week after his first visit to 60 Rectory Walk that Mr. Trupp was sent for again.
The same woman opened to him with the same fierce, almost defiant face.
"Well?" he said.