“You are wasting yourself here, old boy,” he said. “I’m not, truth to tell, in the mood for much, and we oughtn’t to keep you. I feel that I got you here under false pretences; but I couldn’t know what was going to happen, could I? and so I won’t apologise. I think, I really think, that, for the sake of all our feelings, it would be better if you terminated your visit. You don’t mind my saying so, do you?”
“On the contrary, I mind very much,” I answered. “Have you forgotten how, at considerable inconvenience to myself, I responded at once to your invitation, and came down at a moment’s notice? The reason, as you ought to know, Hugh, was pure regard for yourself and a desire to help, and that desire is not lessened because I find you involved in a much more serious business than I had anticipated.”
“O, if you put it in that way”—he began.
“I do put it in that way,” I said, “and I don’t take it very friendly of you that you should talk of denying me a privilege which you were ready enough to grant to that precious new Baron of yours—even pressing him to stay.”
“It was not I who asked him,” he murmured.
“No,” I insisted, “I came to be helpful, and I am going to remain to be helpful. I don’t leave you till I have seen this thing through.”
“Well,” he said very equivocally, “I hope that will be soon”—and he left me to myself to brood over his ingratitude. I was sore with him, I confess, and my grievance made me more unguarded perhaps in my references to him than otherwise I should have been.
“I dare say he does,” I answered the detective; “but after all, I suppose, it is his heart that is affected.”
He looked at me keenly.
“You mean, sir?”