He sat for a moment quite still. Mr. Bundercombe rang the bell.
"The gentlemen I am expecting," he said, "will be here in a moment. You can show them in directly they arrive."
The man bowed and withdrew. Mr. Bundercombe turned to his visitor.
"I have made the acquaintance," he continued, "of these two men, your late partners—sought them out and made it purposely. They are coming here to see me to-night. They fancy that it is just a friendly call. They know that I have money to invest. I have even made use of them, employed them to buy for me bonds of my own choosing. They think it is an affair of a little business chat, perhaps, and a restaurant supper. Pull yourself together, Stanley! Go into that corner, behind the curtain. Wait your time!"
Stanley rose slowly to his feet. His face was drawn as though with pain.
"It isn't so much the money," he muttered, "only I thought—I fancied they would have been there to meet me, to shake me by the hand, to stay with me! And they wanted to push me off out of the country!"
He opened his lips a little wider and swore, softly but vindictively. Then the bell rang. Mr. Bundercombe hastened to push him out of sight. We heard the sound of strange voices in the hall. When the door was opened it was obvious that the whole house was lit up. From somewhere in the distance came the soft music of a piano.
Mr. Harding and Mr. Densmore were announced. I looked at them curiously. They were both most correctly dressed in evening clothes. They both had somehow the hard expression of worldly men, tempered not altogether pleasantly by symptoms of good living. They greeted Mr. Bundercombe with bluff heartiness. He gave them each a hand.
"Now, my friends," he said, "welcome to my house! Paul," he added, turning to me, "let me introduce my two friends, Mr. Harding and Mr. Densmore—Mr. Paul Walmsley. Mr. Walmsley has just been returned for the western division of Bedfordshire."
They greeted me with more than affability. Mr. Harding assured me he had read my speeches. Mr. Densmore thought no one was more to be envied than a man who had the gifts that secured for him a seat in Parliament.