Jasper looked up. “You’re stanch, Alan, but perhaps you’re rash. Then I doubt if Kit would get a post in England.”
“I shall not try,” said Kit. “As soon as I can find out about a boat, I’ll start for Montreal.”
“Your plan’s a good one,” Jasper agreed. “I expect my engineering friends in the Dominion would help——”
“You mustn’t ask them, sir. In the circumstances, all I want is for my relations to leave me alone.”
Jasper shrugged. “Very well. I like your pluck.”
“My pluck’s not all you think,” said Kit and, turning to Alan, smiled, a rather dreary smile. “I don’t dare face the others, and you might inform my aunt. Then I think Mrs. Haigh ought to know.”
He went to the house. By and by he must enlighten Evelyn, but so long as the others were about he could not talk to her, and he frankly shrank from the interview. Although he could take a knock, to hurt Evelyn was another thing.
Alan returned to the tea-table. When he arrived Evelyn and Agatha were gone and Ledward went off. As a rule Ledward used some tact. Alan was embarrassed, and he awkwardly narrated all he knew. In the meantime, Mrs. Haigh saw Jasper in the shady path; he went slowly and his brows were knit. Mrs. Haigh was keen, and she had some grounds to think the grim old fellow would support his nephew. For all that, she imagined Kit and the others doubted. Jasper Carson was rather baffling.
“I admit I am not very much surprised,” Mrs. Carson remarked when her husband stopped. “Since Kit was called to the office, he has been restless and moody, and I thought him anxious. Then, although he jokes about his poverty, his presents were extravagant. One speculated where he got the sum——”
“Do you imply my nephew took a bribe to cheat his employers?” Alan asked.