Vyse, with a quick gleam of relief, slipped into the vacant chair, and began to stir about vaguely among the papers.
“How’s your father?” Betton asked from the hearth.
“Oh, better—better, thank you. He’ll pull out of it.”
“But you had a sharp scare for a day or two?”
“Yes—it was touch and go when I got there.”
Another pause, while Vyse began to classify the letters.
“And I suppose,” Betton continued in a steady tone, “your anxiety made you forget your usual precautions—whatever they were—about this Florida correspondence, and before you’d had time to prevent it the Swazee post-office blundered?”
Vyse lifted his head with a quick movement. “What do you mean?” he asked, pushing his chair back.
“I mean that you saw I couldn’t live without flattery, and that you’ve been ladling it out to me to earn your keep.”
Vyse sat motionless and shrunken, digging the blotting-pad with his pen. “What on earth are you driving at?” he repeated.