The other looked up quickly, then glanced away again. “It's all going as you expected, is it?” he asked.
“Better than I expected,” Thorpe told him, energetically. “Much better than anybody expected.”
“Hah!” said Plowden. After a moment's reflection he went on hesitatingly: “I didn't know. I saw something in one of the papers this morning,—one of the money articles,—which spoke as if there were some doubt about the result. That's why I called.”
“Well—it's damned good of you to come round, and show such a friendly interest.” Thorpe's voice seemed candid enough, but there was an enigmatic something in his glance which aroused the other's distrust.
“I'm afraid you don't take very much stock in the 'friendly interest,'” he said, with a constrained little laugh.
“I'm not taking stock in anything new just now,” replied Thorpe, lending himself lazily to the other's metaphor. “I'm loaded up to the gunnels already.”
A minute of rather oppressive silence ensued. Then Plowden ventured upon an opening. “All the same, it WAS with an idea of,—perhaps being of use to you,—that I came here,” he affirmed. “In what way?” Thorpe put the query almost listlessly.
Lord Plowden turned his hands and let his dark eyes sparkle in a gesture of amiable uncertainty. “That depended upon what was needed. I got the impression that you were in trouble—the paper spoke as if there were no doubt of it—and I imagined that quite probably you would be glad to talk with me about it.”
“Quite right,” said Thorpe. “So I should.”
This comprehensive assurance seemed not, however, to facilitate conversation. The nobleman looked at the pattern of the sock on the ankle he was nursing, and knitted his brows in perplexity. “What if the Committee of the Stock Exchange decide to interfere?” he asked at last.