"I'm sorry," suggested Tollman evenly. "I had hoped that we might have you with us longer. You have brought a certain animation to the uneventfulness of our life here."
Stuart changed his manner with an effort.
"Thank you," he replied. "But I've already over-stayed the time I had allowed myself for a vacation. There are many neglected things to be taken up and finished."
"You hadn't spoken of leaving us before." The regret in Tollman's voice was sincere, because it was the regret of a trapper who sees game slipping away from the snare, and it made him perhaps a shade over insistent. "Do you really regard it as so important?"
For just an instant a gleam of anger showed in the visitor's eyes under this questioning, and his glance, leveled straight at his host, was that of a man who would prefer open combat to veiled hostility.
"Not only important," he corrected, "but vital."
"Of course, in that event," murmured Mr. Tollman, "there is nothing more to say."
But an hour later as Conscience and Farquaharson sat on the terrace, somewhat silent and constrained, Eben joined them with a deeply troubled face.
"I've just come from the telephone," he announced with the air of a man in quandary. "It was an imperative call from Boston—and it puts me in a most awkward position."
Farquaharson, sitting with the drawn brow of preoccupation, simulated for his host's assertion no interest and offered no response, but Conscience asked, "What is it, Eben?"