"The country, yes, but how about some of the party?" asked Morewood. "How about that, Blair? You're supposed to be the man who feeds the ravens and providently caters for the sparrows, you know. You'll have your hands full, I should think."
Blair's look expressed the opinion that they trenched on mysteries; he had these little traits of self-importance, sitting funnily on a round and merry face. Marchmont laughed as he turned to Dick and enquired after Jimmy.
"He was helping you, I suppose?"
"Yes, after Quisanté was in. He's all right." Dick's tone was slightly reserved.
"Did Quisanté help you? He seems to have helped everybody; the man ran about like an electric current."
"I didn't ask him to come to me. I felt, you know——"
"Yes, I see. But Jimmy didn't?"
Dick looked rather puzzled. "I don't quite make Jimmy out about Quisanté," he remarked. "He worked for him like a horse all the time, and wrote me letters praising him to the skies. Then when he was in and everybody was cracking him up Jimmy wouldn't open his mouth about him—seemed not to like the subject, you know."
Nobody spoke; they had heard rumours of an event which would bring Jimmy into new relations with Quisanté, and they waited for possible information. But Dick did not go on, so it was left to Morewood to make the necessary intrusion into private affairs; he did it willingly, with a malicious grin.
"Thinking him over in the light of a relation, perhaps?" he suggested.