The old man had a shy smile at this. "I don't tell the truth that way to everybody," he said demurely.
Neale liked him more and more. "Sir, I am yours to command," he said, sitting down on the steps, "ask ahead!"
Mr. Welles turned serious, and hesitated. "Mr. Bayweather said . . ." He began and looked anxiously at Neale.
"I won't bite even if he did," Neale reassured him.
Mr. Welles looked at him with the pleasantest expression in his eyes. "It's a great relief to find that we can get on with one another," he said, "for I must admit to you that I have fallen a complete victim to Mrs. Crittenden. I . . . I love your wife." He brought it out with a quaint, humorous roundness.
"You can't get up any discussion with me about that," said Neale. "I do myself."
They both laughed, and Mr. Welles said, "But you see, caring such a lot about her, it was a matter of great importance to me what kind of husband she had. I find actually seeing you very exciting."
"You're the first who ever found it so, I'm sure," said Neale, amused at the idea.
"But it wasn't this I wanted to say," said Mr. Welles. He went back and said again, "Mr. Bayweather said your idea of business is service, like a doctor's?"
Neale winced at the Bayweather priggishness of this way of putting it, but remembering his remorse for his earlier brusqueness, he restrained himself to good humor and the admission, "Making allowance for ministerial jargon, that's something like a fair statement."