Walter remained silent, with a mental shrug, and the Squire was rather at a loss to know how to proceed. "Do you know what this woman is like?" he asked.
"I've seen her photograph and heard what Dick has to say about her," said Walter.
"Oh, Dick! Dick's infatuated, of course. I should have thought you would have had more sense than to swallow his description of her blindly. She's—oh, I can't trust myself to say what she is. But I'll tell you this. I'd rather Kencote passed out of the Clinton family altogether than that she came to be mistress of it."
"Well, that won't happen for a great many years, I hope," said Walter.
"It will never happen," said the Squire, with immense emphasis.
Again Walter was silent, and his father slightly embarrassed. "How is he going to get married, I should like to know," he asked presently, "if I don't help him? I've told him that the moment he does marry I shall help him no longer. I don't suppose he's got a couple of hundred pounds in the world. He can marry with that, but he can't live on it. He's not going to live on her money, I suppose."
"No, he's got a job," said Walter calmly.
Again the Squire stared. "Got a job!" he repeated. "What sort of a job?"
"Quite a good one. Agent to John Spence up in Norfolk—the chap who was in his regiment."
The Squire's surprise, and what must be called, in view of his thwarted diplomacy, discomposure, were indicated by his dropped jaw. Walter went on in even tone. "He's to get six hundred a year and a house. There's a place in Warwickshire too, which he'll have to look after. He was just going to take quite a small thing in Ireland, but Spence heard he was available and rushed up and booked him. You see, he knows his job well."