‘Don’t know, my lord.’
‘Don’t know! How came you acquainted with him?’
‘Met him at a country-house, where I happened to break my arm, and took advantage of this young fellow’s skill in surgery to engage his services to carry me to town. There’s the whole of it.’
‘Is he a surgeon?’
‘No, my lord, any more than he is fifty other things, of which he has a smattering.’
‘Has he any means—any private fortune?’
‘I suspect not.’
‘Who and what are his family? Are there Atlees in Ireland?’
‘There may be, my lord. There was an Atlee, a college porter, in Dublin; but I heard our friend say that they were only distantly related.’
He could not help watching Lady Maude as he said this, and was rejoiced to see a sudden twitch of her lower lip as if in pain.