He sat down opposite to her, and stared gloomily at the fire. Christine rather wondered that he did not turn to abuse of himself for having got into the bog, but she supposed that the speculative temper, which acknowledges only bad luck and never bad judgment, saved him from that. He looked at her covertly once or twice; she saw, but pretended not to, and waited to hear what was in his mind: something, clearly, was there.
"No, I don't know where to turn—and I shall be hammered. After thirty years! and my father forty years before me! I never though of its coming to this." After a long pause he added: "I want another fifteen thousand, and I don't know where to turn." He smoked hard for a minute, then flung his cigar peevishly into the fire.
"I do wish I could help you, John!" she sighed.
"I'm afraid you can't, old lady." Again he hesitated. "Unless——" He broke off again.
Christine had some difficulty in keeping her nerves under control. When he spoke again it was abruptly, as though with a wrench.
"I say, do you ever see Caylesham now?"
A very slight, almost imperceptible, start ran over her.
"Lord Caylesham! Oh, I meet him about sometimes. He's at the Raymores' now and then—and at other places of course."
"He never comes here now, does he?"
"Very seldom: to a party now and then." She answered without apparent embarrassment, but her eyes were very sharply on the watch; she was on guard against the next blow.