“Well, I was infinitely tactful—screwed up my courage and shied off again half a dozen times. Then, thank Heaven! Fane-Herbert opened the subject himself. I thought he had been keeping something back. ‘Ordith,’ he said, ‘you must pardon my questioning you on a side-issue. I shouldn’t venture to do so if I was not reasonably certain of being able correctly to anticipate your answer.’”
“Sounds like a lecture,” said Aggett.
“Probably he had thought it out. He was talking at the picture above my head. ‘I think we’d better be frank,’ he went on. ‘I think you ought to know that I regard your marriage with Margaret as an essential adjunct to any scheme of amalgamation.’ Then he explained why. He as good as told me—but polite as the Devil himself, mind you—that he wouldn’t associate Ibble’s with Ordith’s unless he had guarantees that I should look after the Fane-Herbert interest. And, where I am concerned, he regards a husband’s self-interest as the only reliable guarantee.”
“D’ye blame him?”
“No,” said Ordith, with faint irritation.
“Then the thing’s fixed.”
“You think so? There’s another person concerned, you know.”
“The girl? She’s as keen as mustard. Besides, she’ll do as she’s told.”
“The last statement may be true,” Ordith said, with his trick of formality. “The first is, unfortunately, a lie.”
“I’ve watched her dance with ye.”