Conroy still declined to make any answer. I began to feel hot and flurried.
“There are other points, too,” I went on. “For instance a quite pretty girl called Tottie Pringle wants to marry my nephew Godfrey—at least he says she does—simply because he’ll be Lord Kilmore when I’m dead. You’ve met my nephew Godfrey, so you’ll realize that she can’t possibly have any other motive.”
“What,” said Conroy, “does your Government expect me to do in return for making me attractive to Tottie Pringle?”
“It’s not my Government,” I said. “I’m not mixed up with it or responsible for it in any way.”
“I always understood,” said Conroy, “that you are a Liberal.”
“Everybody understands that,” I said, “and it’s no use my contradicting it. As for what the Government wants you to do, I haven’t been actually told; but I fancy you’d be expected to stop giving subscriptions to Lady Moyne.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all I can think of. But, of course, there may be other things.”
“I reckon,” said Conroy, “that your Government can’t be quite fool enough to mind much about what Lady Moyne does with my money. The pennies she drops into the slot so as to make Babberly talk won’t hurt them any.”