"Can't I?" was his rejoinder. "Well, I suppose you won't doubt my word, when I give you my honour, that he consulted me himself about a loan from this very man. Three thousand pounds, Mrs. Lushington—three thousand pounds sterling, and at two days' notice. Didn't care what he paid for it, and wanted it; well, I didn't ask him why he wanted it; I don't pry into other people's money-matters. I don't always think the worst of my neighbours. But you'll allow I'm right, I hope! You'll admit so much at any rate!"
"That has nothing to do with it," replied his wife; and in this highly satisfactory manner their matrimonial bicker terminated.
Mrs. Lushington, while remaining, in a modified sense, mistress of the position—for Frank retired to his own den, when the servants came to take away breakfast—found her curiosity keenly stimulated by the little piece of gossip thus let fall under the excitement of a conjugal wrangle. What on earth could St. Josephs want with three thousand pounds? She had never heard he was a gambler. On a race-course, she knew, from personal observation, that beyond a few half-crowns with the ladies, he would not venture a shilling. He had told her repeatedly how he abhorred foreign loans, joint-stock companies, lucrative investments of all sorts, and money speculations of any kind whatever; yet here, if she believed her husband, was this wise and cautious veteran plunging overhead in a transaction wholly out of keeping with his character and habits. "There must be a woman at the bottom of it!" thought Mrs. Lushington, not unreasonably, resolving at the same time never to rest till she had sifted the whole mystery from beginning to end.
She felt so keen on her quest, that she could even have found it in her heart to seek Frank in his own snuggery, and, sinking her dignity, there endeavoured to worm out of him further particulars, when Catamount was pulled up with some difficulty at her door, and his master's card sent in, accompanied by a humble petition that the early visitor might be admitted. Having darkened her eyelashes just before breakfast, and being, moreover, dressed in an unusually becoming morning toilet, she returned a favourable answer, so that Soldier Bill, glowing from his ride, was ushered into her boudoir without delay.
Her womanly tact observed his fussed and anxious looks. She assumed, therefore, an air of interest and gravity in her own.
"There's some bother," said she kindly; "I see it in your face. How can I help you, and what can I do?"
"You're a conjuror, by Jove!" gasped Bill, in a paroxysm of admiration at her omniscience.
"You're not, at any rate!" she replied, smiling. "But, come, tell me all about it. You're in a scrape? You've been a naughty boy. What have you been doing? Out with it!"
"It's nothing of my own; I give you my honour," replied Bill. "It's Daisy's turn now. Look here, Mrs. Lushington. I'm completely puzzled—regularly knocked out of time. Read that. I can't make head or tail of it."