“Do not be alarmed as to the obligation,” he said quietly. “My client is a man who is accustomed, like Shylock, to exact the last penny—even to the pound of flesh. He will not let you off easily.”
Barbara drew a quick breath.
“It is a man, then?” she asked. “I—hoped——”
“You were hoping it was a woman,” he said dryly. “I have committed an indiscretion in telling you so much. But—conceive, if you will, a man, well along in years, the—guardian of a child, who requires——”
“Is the child,” asked Barbara, “a boy or girl?”
He hesitated.
“Er—I cannot tell you as to that. Let us suppose for the moment that it is a boy.”
“Have you seen the child?”
He looked at her with what she would have called in another a bantering tenderness in his deep-set eyes. In connection with Stephen Jarvis the suggestion was untenable—absurd.
“Do you know you are cross-examining me with considerable adroitness?” he said. “I must be on my guard, or you will force me to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”