The other preserved silence in turn, and even made a pretence of looking at some pamphlets on the table, as a token of his boundless deference to the master's mood.
“I don't know. I'll see,” the big man muttered at last, doubtfully.
Lord Plowden felt warranted in taking an optimistic view of these vague words. “It's awfully good of you”—he began, lamely, and then paused. “I wonder,”—he took up a new thought with a more solicitous tone,—“I wonder if you would mind returning to me that idiotic paper I signed.”
Thorpe shook his head. “Not just now, at any rate,” he said, still musingly. With his head bowed, he took a few restless steps.
“But you are going to—to help me!” the other remarked, with an air of confidence. He had taken up his hat, in response to the tacit warning of his companion's manner.
Thorpe looked at him curiously, and hesitated over his answer. It was a surprising and almost unaccountable conclusion for the interview to have reached. He was in some vague way ashamed of himself, but he was explicitly and contemptuously ashamed for Plowden, and the impulse to say so was strong within him. This handsome young gentleman of title ought not to be escaping with this restored buoyancy of mien, and this complacency of spirit. He had deserved to be punished with a heavy hand, and here he was blithely making certain of new benefits instead.
“I don't know—I'll see,” Thorpe moodily repeated—and there was no more to be said.
CHAPTER XXI
IN the noon hour of the following day was enacted the brief final scene in the drama of the “Rubber Consols corner.”