§ 2
When Lord Chickney’s thoughts had once started in any direction it was difficult to turn them aside. No doubt that concealed and repudiated deafness helped his natural perplexity of mind. Truth comes to some of us as a still small voice, but Lord Chickney needed shouting and prods. And Douglas did not get to him until he was finishing lunch. Moreover, it was the weakness of Captain Douglas to talk in jerky fragments and undertones, rather than clearly and fully in the American fashion. “Tell me all about it, my boy,” said Lord Chickney. “Tell me all about it. Don’t apologize for your clothes. I understand. Motor bicycle and just come up. But have you had any lunch, Eric?”
“Alan, uncle,—not Eric. My brother is Eric.”
“Well, I called him Alan. Tell me all about it. Tell me what has happened. What are you thinking of doing? Just put the positions before me. To tell you the truth I’ve been worrying over this business for some time.”
“Didn’t know you’d heard of it, uncle. He can’t have talked about it already. Anyhow,—you see all the awkwardness of the situation. They say the old chap’s a thundering spiteful old devil when he’s roused—and there’s no doubt he was roused.... Tremendously....”
Lord Chickney was not listening very attentively. Indeed he was also talking. “Not clear to me there was another man in it,” he was saying. “That makes it more complicated, my boy, makes the row acuter. Old fellow, eh? Who?”
They came to a pause at the same moment.
“You speak so indistinctly,” complained Lord Chickney. “Who did you say?”
“I thought you understood. Lord Moggeridge.”
“Lord—! Lord Moggeridge! My dear Boy! But how?”