Brooks shrugged his shoulders.
"I do not fear it," he answered, calmly. "As a matter of fact, however, I am going to form a council to take the management of the financial organization. It is getting too large a thing for me with all my other work. Is there anything else you wished to say to me?"
The eyes of the two men met for a moment both unflinchingly. Perhaps they were each searching for something they could not find.
"There is nothing else. Don't let me detain you."
Brooks, who was the leaving guest, stepped quietly away, and Lord
Arranmore calmly outstayed all the other callers.
"Your manners," Lady Caroom told him, as the last of her guests departed, "are simply hoydenish. Who told you that you might sit out all my visitors in this bare-faced way?"
"You, dear lady, or rather your manner," he answered, imperturbably.
"It seemed to me that you were saying all the time, 'Do not desert me!
Do not desert me!' And so I sat tight."
"An imagination like yours," she declared, "is positively unhealthy.
Arranmore, what an idiot you are.
"Well?"
"Oh, you know all about it—and one hears! Are you tired of your life?"