Peter did not reply.
“My daughter?”
“No. I’m not at all likely to——”
“Then it was Allie Kinnear,” said Richmond, and Peter guiltily felt as if the information had been wrenched from him. “So, she’s trying to marry you?”
“Mr. Richmond,” said Peter with the stiffness of an insulted man of ancient lineage, “I have the highest esteem for Miss——”
“So have I,” interrupted Richmond. “She’s a pretty, bright, shrewd girl. She fools everybody. But I’d have thought you would have been on guard.”
“I assure you, sir, Miss Kinnear——”
“Oh—by the way”—Richmond broke into Peter’s sentence as if a thought on another subject had happened to flash through his mind. “Bring those mortgages to my office before two o’clock to-morrow,” said he carelessly. “I’ve an appointment at two-thirty. That gives us a clear half hour—plenty of time.”
Peter seemed to wither. The internal havoc was more dire than the external; for, internally, he had shriveled.
“Miss Kinnear is pretending to love you,” went on his tormentor, harking back to the matrimonial business. “I want to find out just how far you’ve walked into her trap.”