The young man smiled. “My father,” he said, “had not been farther than Loughborough for twenty years.”
There was a short silence. Wilhelmina, deliberately, and without any attempt at concealment, was meditatively watching the young man, studying his features with a half-contemptuous and yet searching interest. Perhaps the slightly curving lips, the hard intentness of her gaze, suggested that he was disbelieved. He lost colour and fidgeted about. It was a scrutiny not easy to bear, and he felt that it was going against him. Already she had written him down a liar.
She spoke to him at last. If the silence had not ended soon, he would have made some blundering attempt to retrieve his position. She spoke just in time to avert such ignominy.
“Mr. Hurd,” she said, “the question of your father’s successor is one that has doubtless occurred to you as it has to me. I trust that you will, at any rate, remain here. As to whether I can offer you your father’s position in its entirety, I am not for the present assured.”
He glanced up at her furtively. He was certain now that he had played his cards ill. She had read through him easily. He cursed himself for a lout.
“You see,” she continued, “the post is one of great responsibility, because it entails the management of the whole estates. It is necessary for me to feel absolute confidence in the person who undertakes it. I have not known you very long, Mr. Hurd.”
He bowed. He could not trust himself to words.
“I have instructed them to send some one down from my solicitor’s office for a week or so,” she continued, “to assist you. In the meantime, I must think the matter over.”
“I am very much obliged to you, madam,” he said. “You will find me, I think, quite as trustworthy and devoted to your interests as my father.”
She smiled slightly. She recognized exactly his quandary, and it amused her. The slightest suggestion of menace in his manner would be to give the lie to himself.