"Yes."
He turned and faced me. He was certainly paler than he had been a few minutes ago.
"I should be glad," he said, "if you would arrange for me to have an interview with her."
"An interview with Mrs. Smith-Lessing!" I repeated incredulously.
The Duke inclined his head.
"There are a few questions," he said, "which I wish to ask her."
"I can give you her address," I said.
"I wish you to see her and arrange for the interview personally," the.
Duke answered.
"You will see that my visiting her does not prejudice me further with the Board, sir?" I ventured to say. "You can take that for granted," the Duke said. So that afternoon I called at No. 29, Bloomsbury Street, and in a shabby back room of a gloomy, smoke-begrimed lodging-house I found my father and Mrs. Smith-Lessing. He was lying upon a horsehair sofa, apparently dozing. She was gazing negligently out of the window, and drumming upon the window pane with her fingers. My arrival seemed to act like an electric shock upon both of them. It struck me that to her it was not altogether welcome, but my father was nervously anxious to impress upon me his satisfaction at my visit.
"Now," he said, drawing his chair up to the table, "we can discuss this little matter in a business-like way. I am delighted to see you, Guy, quite delighted."