“Prevaricator!” she remarked pleasantly.
“Jove! You’re right,” he exclaimed. “It’s you I’m after comin’ to see! There’s heaps I want to tell you.”
“Sit down,” she jabbed a needle at a chair, “and get it off your chest.”
He told her about Walter from the time of his first acquaintance with him in the smoker of the Victoria—omitting, of course, the real facts about his own change of name—up to the latest incident of the refusal of his daily “nip.” Then he related the astonishing transformation in Mrs. Wells, her sudden taking on of the privileges of age, ending with her placing Jerry in charge of the Wells finances.
“The Wells seem prosperous,” he half inquired.
“They are,” Phœbe answered; “they have six hundred acres, mostly under cultivation. The vineyards are especially profitable. The negroes under George Alexander manage the place excellently. Besides, they have a lot of money invested in mortgages and wine stocks. It’s a perfectly safe investment, young man. Don’t be afraid to commit yourself.”
Phœbe Norris was notoriously direct, but the point seemed to slip by Richard.
“Then there’s all the more reason for Jerry to get legal control.”
“And why, pray?”
He explained the danger that might suddenly loom up with the transfer of the property to Walter.