“Of an urgent nature.”
“Yes. Yes. Exactly. Just a little complicated, you know, not quite simple.” The dear old soldier’s manner became almost seductive. “One of these difficult little affairs, where one has to remember that one is a man of the world, you know. A little complication about a lady, known to you both. But one must make concessions, one must understand. The boy has a witness. Things are not as you supposed them to be.”
Lord Moggeridge had a clean conscience about ladies; he drew out his watch and looked at it—aggressively. He kept it in his hand during his subsequent remarks.
“I must confess,” he declared, “I have not the remotest idea.... If you will be so good as to be—elementary. What is it all about?”
“You see, I knew the lad’s mother,” said Lord Chickney. “In fact—” He became insanely confidential—“Under happier circumstances—don’t misunderstand me, Moggeridge; I mean no evil—but he might have been my son. I feel for him like a son....”
§ 7
When presently Captain Douglas, a little heated from his engine trouble, came into the room—he had left Bealby with Candler in the hall—it was instantly manifest to him that the work of preparation had been inadequately performed.
“One minute more, my dear Alan,” cried Lord Chickney.
Lord Moggeridge with eyebrows waving and watch in hand was of a different opinion. He addressed himself to Captain Douglas.
“There isn’t a minute more,” he said. “What is all this—this philoprogenitive rigmarole about? Why have you come to me? My cab is outside now. All this about ladies and witnesses;—what is it?”