Mrs. Ansley intervened as one who pacifies. "He's going out with Guy at two o'clock, to help him run the runabout."
"Help me run it! Why, mother, you talk as if—"
"And Guy couldn't let him go off without anything to eat."
"Quite so! quite so!" Mr. Ansley agreed. "Glad to see you. Sit down." He helped himself to the shepherd's pie which Pilcher passed again. "Let me see! What was it your name was?"
Tom sat down again. "Whitelaw, sir."
"Oh, yes; so it was. You're the same Whitelaw who's been running about this winter and spring with Guy. Quite so! quite so! Oh, and by the way, Sunshine, speaking of Whitelaw, Henry looked in on me this morning. Ran over from New York about some business cropped up since the sinking of the Lusitania."
"How is he?"
"Seems rather worried. Lost several intimate friends on the ship, besides which the old question seems to be popping up again."
Mrs. Ansley sighed. "Oh, dear! I hope they'll not be dragged through all that with another of their foolish clues. I thought it was over."
"It's over for Eleonora. But you know how Henry feels about it. Got it on the brain. Pity, I call it, after—how many years is it?"