'Yes, he certainly does. This quarrel, as you perhaps know, means ruin to them both.'
'Ruin!' he cried; 'then it must not go on.'
'You are very good to take such an interest in the Ferriers.'
'Ah,' he said sadly, 'I have known ruin, and it is hard if the innocent one suffers with the guilty.'
He looked about as little like a ruined man as it was possible to be. His dress was perfect, though it had a certain foreign air that was not to be traced to that too great prominence of shirt collar and prodigality of cuff, that shininess of hat and boot, that exuberant floridity of necktie, which are the signet of the flâneur of the boulevards. Above all, his nails were unexceptionable.
'Their father left it in his will,' said Miss Stanley, bluntly, glad to get away from the subject of Roland's possible lâches, 'that if they quarrelled they lost all their money.'
'They were ever given to quarrelling, then?' asked Litvinoff.
'No, I don't think so; but Mr Ferrier was old and very funny.'
'He seems to have been prophetic in this instance; or perhaps he knew what they were likely to quarrel about.'
Clare stroked her muff with her kid-gloved hand, and wondered whether the late Mr Ferrier had thought they were likely to quarrel about her.