"Profit?" she repeated wonderingly. "Are you in need of profit?"
"It is the poison of wealth," he observed. "One is always trying to add to what one has."
She turned her head and looked at him intently. For a moment she was almost startled. There was something unreal in the sound of his words. Something that was almost a foreboding chilled her.
"Mr. Thain," she said calmly.
"Yes?"
"Had you any reason—any special reason, I mean—for selling those shares to my father?"
His face was inscrutable.
"What reason should I have, Lady Letitia?"
"I can't imagine any," she replied, "and yet—for a moment I thought that you were talking artificially. I probably did you an injustice. I am sorry."
David's teeth came together. There was lightning in his eyes as he glanced down through the trees towards Vont's little cottage.