“If that is your opinion and you will not accept my statement, I suppose there is no more to be said,” he answered rather gruffly.
I rose to go and signalled to my clerk.
“You will let me offer you a glass of wine,” he said; “and I should be glad if you will stay and dine with me. Your drive home is a pretty long one.”
I accepted the wine and some biscuits, as did also my clerk, and then, when I declared we were ready for the road, Mr. Jephson said he would drive us himself.
I thought it was rather strange he did not offer to send the coachman, as he had himself already covered the road twice that day. But as he and I sat in the dog-cart in front he volunteered an explanation. He did not wish, he said, his servants to know too much about his business. But this appeared to me rather a curious explanation. There was nothing about the business that required concealment, I said to myself.
“And that is the reason why I wished you to bring your clerk with you. I like to have discreet people, and not babblers about me, and I always make it a point whenever I can to employ professional men.”
This was intended, no doubt, as flattering, and I fear I was not above being pleased with it. I knew after that it was also intended as a hint that he expected I would not speak about the business which had taken me to Longfield.
When we arrived at my office he offered me a fee of five guineas; but I refused this on the ground that the business in which he had employed me had come to nothing. Saying good-night in a cordial way Mr. Jephson drove away.