He listened in sceptical silence.
“Mr. Brumley is nothing to me but a helper. He——How can you imagine, Isaac——? I! How can you dare? To suggest——!”
“Very well,” said Sir Isaac and reflected and made his old familiar sound with his teeth. “Run the hostels without him, Elly,” he propounded. “Then I’ll believe.”
She perceived that suddenly she was faced by a test or a bargain. In the background of her mind the figure of Mr. Brumley, as she had seen him last, in brown and with a tie rather to one side, protested vainly. She did what she could for him on the spur of the moment. “But,” she said, “he’s so helpful. He’s so—harmless.”
“That’s as may be,” said Sir Isaac and breathed heavily.
“How can one suddenly turn on a friend?”
“I don’t see that you ever wanted a friend,” said Sir Isaac.
“He’s been so good. It isn’t reasonable, Isaac. When anyone has—slaved.”
“I don’t say he isn’t a good sort of chap,” said Sir Isaac, with that same note of almost superhuman rationality, “only—he isn’t going to run my hostels.”
“But what do you mean, Isaac?”