"Nothing."
The Marquis looked ruminatively at the cedar spill with which he had just lit his cigarette.
"I am almost certain," he said, "that I saw him on the platform at Raynham—the nearest station to Mandeleys—yesterday. He seemed marvellously little altered."
"He has probably taken up his abode down there, then," David observed.
The Marquis's face darkened. He brushed the subject aside.
"There is a matter concerning which I wish to speak to you, Mr. Thain," he said. "You are one of the fortunate ones of the earth, who have attained, by your own efforts, I believe, an immense prosperity."
David listened in silence, watching the ash at the end of his cigar.
"Your money, my son-in-law, Sir Robert, tells me," the Marquis continued, "has been made in brilliant and sagacious speculation. There have no doubt been others who have followed in your footsteps, and, in a humbler way, have shared your success."
David had developed a rare gift of silence. He smoked steadily, and his expression was remarkably stolid.
"I find myself in need of a sum," the Marquis proceeded, with the air of a man introducing a business proposition, "of two hundred and twenty thousand pounds—there or thereabouts."