"How do you do, Dereham?" he said nonchalantly.
Dereham hesitated a moment, then shook the proffered hand with as near an approach to warmth as he ever exhibited.
"Lomax—Griff Lomax—by all that's wonderful! I didn't recognize you at first—how could I, when I suddenly came upon you masquerading as a son of toil? I always thought you were as mad as a hatter, Lomax, and now I know it."
"Lomax? Was Joshua Lomax your father?" interrupted Laverack. His self-assertiveness had crawled away out of sight.
Griff neither looked at him nor answered. The man was too much his senior, he felt, to admit of his knocking him down, and the temptation bore rather heavily on him just now. Dereham stared at them both, and wondered. Laverack shuffled his feet noiselessly among the peat-rubble; twice he made as if to speak, then thought better of it; finally, he turned on his heel, whistled to his dog, and set off across the moor. He turned after awhile.
"Are you coming, Dereham?" he asked.
"Directly. If we miss each other we shall meet at the lodge for lunch?"
Again Laverack hesitated, glancing from Dereham to Lomax, and making a rapid mental calculation as to the chances of Griff's silence.
"All right, one o'clock, sharp," he said, and went forward.
"What the deuce are you playing at, you and Laverack?" asked Dereham.