"Some one equally competent to speak? Are you prepared to name this anonymous authority?"
Amherst hesitated. "No—I shall have to ask you to take my word for it," he returned with a shade of embarrassment.
"Ah—" Mr. Tredegar murmured, giving to the expressive syllable its utmost measure of decent exultation.
Amherst quivered under the thin lash, and broke out: "It is all you have required of Dr. Disbrow—" but at this point Mr. Tredegar rose to his feet.
"My dear sir, your resorting to such arguments convinces me that nothing is to be gained by prolonging our talk. I will not even take up your insinuations against two of the most respected men in the community—such charges reflect only on those who make them."
Amherst, whose flame of anger had subsided with the sudden sense of its futility, received this in silence, and the lawyer, reassured, continued with a touch of condescension: "My only specific charge from Mrs. Westmore was to hand you this cheque; but, in spite of what has passed, I take it upon myself to add, in her behalf, that your conduct of today will not be allowed to weigh against your record at the mills, and that the extraordinary charges you have seen fit to bring against your superiors will—if not repeated—simply be ignored."
When, the next morning at about ten, Mrs. Eustace Ansell joined herself to the two gentlemen who still lingered over a desultory breakfast in Mrs. Westmore's dining-room, she responded to their greeting with less than her usual vivacity.
"No—I shall have to ask you to take my word for it."