"Dear me!" his companion sighed. "It seems quite a great deal of money."
"Since we are upon the subject," the lawyer proceeded, "my firm has suggested that I should approach your lordship with regard to some means of—pardon me—reducing the liability in question."
So far as the face of Mr. Wadham's client was capable of expressing anything, it expressed now a certain amount of surprise.
"It appears to me, Mr. Wadham," he remarked, "that you are asking me to attend to your business for you."
The lawyer knitted his brows in puzzled fashion.
"I am not sure that I quite follow your lordship," he murmured.
"Do I employ you," his patron continued, "to manage my estates, to control my finances, to act as agent to all my properties, and yet need to keep a perspective myself of my various assets? If eighteen thousand pounds is required, it is for your firm to decide from what quarter the money should come. Personally, as you know, I never interfere."
Mr. Wadham coughed in somewhat embarrassed fashion.
"As a matter of fact, your lordship," he confessed, with a most illogical sense that it was his duty to apologise for his client's impecuniosity, "as a matter of fact, neither my partners nor I can at the present moment see where a sum of eighteen thousand pounds can be raised."
The Marquis rose to his feet and shook the cigarette ash carefully from his coat.