'Not extending to actresses, eh?' said Duval, whose care it now was to get her to commit and confuse herself as much as possible.
'Don't be absurd, and do let me go on, if you want me to tell you anything. I was going to say he had some peculiar objection to be acquainted with actors, because he thought they would be injurious to the serious and solid business connection he wanted to form in London. He never told me what his business was, and I'm sure I never wanted to know. All business is a bore until it comes to spending the money, and I hate hearing about it; so I never bothered him on that score. He once told me that as Mr. Foster was also a man of business, he might be possibly mixed up with some transactions which would clash with his own.'
'Did he say that?' asked Thornton Carey eagerly.
'Certainly,' said Miss Montressor; 'I recollect the expression.'
'Now, Clara, pull your wits together, and answer this question clearly--Did Mr. Dolby ever allude in any way to Foster's wife?'
'Only in this way. At this same interview he asked me if Mr. Foster were married; and when I told him "yes," and that he was always raving about his wife, Dolby sneered, and said he hated men who aired their domestic affairs before the world.'
'Was that the last time you saw him?'
'The very last. He took the precaution of calling himself Dolby when he came to see me,'. continued Miss Montressor, floundering more and more: of which fact Bryan Duval looked, this time, profoundly unconscious.
'The precaution!' he repeated; 'why the precaution? Was not Dolby his real name?'
'I really cannot tell you--I only know it was not the name he went by in society, at his lodgings and so forth, for there he was known as Mr. Dunn.'