“Dear Mr. Petre,
“You will remember our recent conversations. I am putting it before them now. I wonder, could you let me have a line simply to say ‘An arrangement with the present Company if they will, after an appointment with Mr. Trefusis; if he will discuss the matter with me. Failing this, an independent proposition.’ It would be quite enough.
“Yours,
“C. T.”
The messenger was told to wait for an answer.
Mr. Petre was still one of those who on receiving a letter answered it, such was his simplicity, such was his happy ignorance of the world. When he had read that innocent note, of which the hand was the hand of Terrard, but the spirit was the spirit of Charlbury, he wrote his reply at once, straight-forwardly as a man should:
“Dear Mr. Terrard,
“Yes, that was exactly the way we put it, an arrangement with the present Company, if they will, after an appointment with Mr. Trefusis, if he will discuss the matter with me. Failing this, an independent proposition.
“Very sincerely yours,
“John K. Petre.”