“And your hands are pretty full as it is?”
He nodded, and she went away without even shaking hands. She omitted her farewells to any other member of the family except Pringle, who, Farron heard, was congratulating her on her consideration for servants as he put her into her taxi.
Then he opened the door of his study, went to the chair he had risen from, and took up the paper at the paragraph at which he had dropped it. Adelaide’s eyes followed him like search-lights.
“May I ask,” she said with her edged voice, “if you have been disposing of my child’s future in there without consulting me?”
If their places had been reversed, Adelaide would have raised her eyebrows and repeated, “Your child’s future?” but Farron was more direct.
“I have been engaging Wayne as a secretary,” he said, and, turning to the financial page, glanced down the quotations.
“Then you must dismiss him again.”
“He will be a useful man to me,” said Farron, as if she had not spoken. “I have needed some one whom I could depend on—”
“Vincent, it is absurd for you to pretend you don’t know he wanted to marry Mathilde.”
He did not raise his eyes.