Mr. Bechcombe laughed.
“Hardly! That would be delightful in a solicitor's office. She sits in that little room at the side, but there is no communicating door and of course she can't hear what goes on here. The door is in the top passage, past my private entrance. I didn't expect to hear her machine, but there is something particularly penetrating about a typewriter. However, it is really very faint and I have got quite used to it. Would you like to see her?”
The clergyman looked undecided for a moment; then he shook his head.
“No, I shouldn't care to do anything that might look like spying. Time enough for me to see her when there is anything decided.”
“Please yourself!” Luke Bechcombe said gruffly. “Anyway if I had to choose between Tony and Aubrey Todmarsh I should take Tony.”
“I wouldn't,” Tony's father said. “The lad is a good lad when he is away from these friends of his. But he is weak—terribly weak. Now Aubrey Todmarsh—though I haven't always approved of him—is doing wonderful work in that East End settlement of his. He is marvellously successful in dealing with a class of men that we clergy are seldom able to reach.”
“Umph! Well, he is always out for money for something,” said the solicitor. “He invades this office sometimes almost demanding subscriptions. Will he expect his wife to go and live down at this Community house, I wonder? However, I believe the settlement is an attraction to some silly women, and to my mind he will want all the attraction he can get. I can't stand Aubrey myself. I have no use for conscientious objectors—never had!”
“There I am with you,” assented the clergyman. “But I think Aubrey is hardly to be judged by ordinary standards. He is a visionary, an enthusiast. Of course I hold him to have been mistaken about the War, but honestly mistaken. With his dreams of reforming mankind I can understand——”
Mr. Bechcombe snorted.
“Can you? I can't! I am jolly glad your Tony didn't dream such dreams. Two conscientious objectors in the family would have been too much for me. I never could stand old Todmarsh. Aubrey is the very spit of him, as we used to say in Leicestershire.”