“May I ask, then, why you have come down?”
“The—er—the cheque, my dear madam.”
“Might very well have come by post, Mr Saxby.”
“Yes, but I was anxious to see and hear about how poor Sir James is getting on; to say a few words of condolence to Lady Scarlett. I esteem them both very highly, Miss Raleigh; I do indeed.”
“Dear me! Ah!” said Aunt Sophia; “and—Shall I finish for you, Saxby?”
“Finish for me, my dear madam? I do not understand.”
“Then I will, Saxby: you thought that if you came down and brought the cheque, you might perhaps see my niece.”
“My dear madam! My dear Miss Raleigh! Really, my dear madam!”
“Don’t be a sham, Saxby. Own it like a man.”
Mr Saxby looked helplessly round the room, as if in search of help, even of an open door through which he could escape; but there was none; and whenever he looked straight before him, there was the unrelenting eye of the elderly maiden lady fixed upon him, and seeming to read him through and through. He wished that he had not come; he wished that he could bring his office effrontery down with him; he wished that he could make Aunt Sophia quail, as he could his clerks; but all in vain. Aunt Sophia, to use her own words, could turn him round her finger when she had him there, and at last he gasped out: