“How far does your interest extend?” asked Maxell curiously. “You’re not the sort of person, I should imagine, who would take up the unfortunate poor as a hobby.”
“Not a something-for-nothing man, in fact,” laughed Cartwright. “I’ve been told that twice in twenty-four hours.”
“Who was the other person—the actress?”
Cartwright roared with laughter and slapped the other on the knee.
“You’re a good guesser,” he said. “No, I am not a something-for-nothing person. I’m one of those optimists who plant fir cones so that I shall have some good firewood for my old age. I don’t know what sort of a man Timothy will make, but, as I say, he shapes good, and anyway, you and I are in the same boat.”
“Except this,” said Maxell, “that from what you say, you aren’t particularly interested in your protégé, and you don’t really care whether he shapes good or shapes bad.”
“That’s true,” admitted Cartwright. “He’s an experiment.”
“My little girl is something more than that,” said Maxell quietly; “she’s the only living thing I have any real affection for—she is my dead brother’s child.”
“Your niece, eh? Well, that gives you an interest which I have not. I never had a niece and I should just hate to be called uncle, anyway.”
Their conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of a small man dressed in his best clothes. On his brow was a frown which was intended to be terrible, but was slightly amusing. Jose Ferreira had dressed and prepared himself for an interview which, as he had described to his friends, could not fail to be at once “terrifying and vital.” For, as he had said: “This man has sliced my life!”