“Who was that funny little man I saw go out of the house?” she asked.
“He is a man named Superbus,” said Gordon, roused from his reverie with a start, “who has been making certain enquiries. He’s been trying to trace somebody who has robbed a man of eight thousand pounds.”
“Oh!” said Diana, and sat down quickly. The ghost of the late Mr. Dempsi was very active at that moment.
CHAPTER VII
Diana liked Bobbie Selsbury the moment she saw him. He was a smaller edition of his brother, a brusque, cynical young man, with a passion for revue and the more clingy variations of modern dancing. Also he was engaged to a girl in Canada, and had no intense interest in any other woman. She liked him most because he was entirely without that brand of soul which wriggled so frequently under the scalpel of his brother.
He came to dinner twice, and on the second occasion Gordon thought his relative was on sufficiently good terms with his unwanted guest, to discuss openly the impropriety of her continued stay.
“Bobbie is what is known as a man of the world,” said Gordon. When Gordon introduced the virtues of his friends, he did so in the manner of a chairman at a public meeting bringing an unknown speaker to the notice of an audience. “He has a keener concept of relative social values than either I, who am a little old-fashioned, or you, my child, who have led a cloistered life. I think we can safely leave the issue in Bobbie’s hands. Now, Bobbie, I’m going to put the matter to you without prejudice. Is it right that Diana should be staying in the same house as I, without a chaperone?”
“I don’t see why she should want a chaperone with a dry old stick like you,” said Bobbie instantly. “Besides, you’re cousins. She has certainly made Cheynel Gardens a place worth visiting, which it never was before.”
“But the world—” protested Gordon.
“The other day you were telling me how superior you were to the world and its opinions,” said the traitor Bobbie. “You told me that the views of the hoi polloi passed you by without making the least impression. You said that a man should rise superior to the test of public approval. You said——”