Duncombe's long fingers played for a moment with his small black moustache. There was a quick light in his eyes as he glanced towards Leonard.
"Three years this June," he answered.
"Then he was sixteen when he came to you?"
Duncombe assented with a little motion of his head.
"You probably think that he is backward now for nineteen," he said. "You should have seen him when he came to me."
"I suppose he is backward," I admitted, "and yet, to tell you the truth, I should have thought him older."
"His twentieth birthday is this week," Duncombe told us. "I am getting a thousand a year and my expenses for looking after him, and I haven't any prospects of a job when he is out of my hands, but I wish to heavens it was his twenty-first!—I suppose we ought to see what the others are doing."
We made our way out into the hall, which was the main living room of the Grange. Arthur was playing billiards with Lethwaite, playing sullenly and without interest, and turning around after every stroke to listen to the conversation between Rose and the other two girls, who were seated upon a lounge, watching. Lethwaite, just as we appeared, went out with a stroke which was an obvious fluke. Arthur flung half a crown across the table and put up his cue ill-humoredly.
"Beastly fluke!" he grumbled. "No one can play against such luck."
He strode over with his hands in his pockets to where Rose was seated. Miss Duncombe watched him approach with a sombre light in her dark eyes.