"Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes."
"So can I."
Again Jones laughed. "Not in my neighbourhood. You were talking of Lennox and drifted from him into the Bible. Your thoughts of the one recalled studies of the other and at once you had Abraham's daughter downed on the racecourse. Well, she won't be."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it is my business to see things before they occur. Miss Austen——"
"I never mentioned her," Verelst heatedly exclaimed. "You have no right to——"
"I admit it. But because of Lennox the whole matter has preoccupied me and quite as much, I daresay, as it has distressed you."
"I don't see at all what you have to do with it."
"Perhaps not. But preoccupation may lead to crystal-gazing. Now I will wager a red pippin that I can tell what you said at the steeplechase to the steeplestakes. You asked after his father."