“Well; and then?” said Maradick.
“Oh! he’ll agree, I know he will. And then I think we’ll be married right at once; there’s no use in waiting, you know, and there’s a little church right over by Strater Cove, near the sea, a little tumbledown place with a parson who’s an awful sportsman. He’s got five children and two hundred a year, and—oh! where was I?—and then we’ll just come back and tell them. They can’t do anything then, you know, and father will get over it all right.”
Tony was so serene about it, swinging his legs there in the sun, that Maradick could say nothing.
“And if Morelli doesn’t take to the idea?” he ventured at last.
“Oh! he!” said Tony. “Oh, he’s really most awfully keen. You noticed how we got on. I took to him from the first, there was something about him.” But he swung round rather anxiously towards Maradick. “Why! do you think he won’t?” he said.
“I’m not sure of him,” Maradick answered. “I never have been. And then I was with Punch this morning and he told me things about him.”
“Things! What sort of things?” asked Tony rather incredulously.
“Oh, about the way that he treated his wife.” It was, after all, Maradick reflected, extremely vague, nothing very much that one could lay hands on. “I don’t like the man, and I don’t for a minute think that he’s playing square with you.”
But Tony smiled, a rather superior smile. After all, that was Maradick’s way, to be pessimistic about things; it was to do with his age. Middle-aged people were always cautious and suspicious. For a moment he felt quite a distance from Maradick, and something akin to the same feeling made him stretch out his hand for Janet’s letter.
“After all,” he said rather awkwardly, “perhaps she would rather that I didn’t show it to anyone, even you.” He jumped down from the wall. “Well, I must be off. It’s after three. I say, keep the family in the dark until I’m back. They’re sure to ask. Now that Alice and father are both beginning to think about it we shall fairly have to begin the conspirator business.” He laughed in his jolly way and stood in front of Maradick with a smile all over his face. Suddenly he leant forward and put his hands on the other man’s shoulders and shook him gently.