CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND
JOAN MISSES HER CUE
Hughie spent the next few months chiefly in wondering.
He wondered what Mr. Haliburton's game might be. What was he doing behind Lance Gaymer? That the latter might consider himself justified in poking his nose into his only sister's affairs was understandable enough—but why drag in Haliburton? Was that picturesque ruffian a genuine friend of Lance's, enlisted in a brotherly endeavour to readjust Jimmy Marrable's exceedingly unsymmetrical disposition of his property, or was he merely a member of that far-reaching and conspicuously able fraternity (known in sporting circles as "The Nuts"), to whom all mankind is fair game, and whose one article of faith is a trite proverb on the subject of a fool and his money, pursuing his ordinary avocation of "making a bit"? In other words, was Lance Gaymer pulling Haliburton, or was Haliburton pushing Lance Gaymer?
Hughie also wondered about a good many other things, notably—
(a) Joan.
(b) More Joan; coupled with dim speculations as to how it was all going to end.
(c) More Joan still; together with a growing desire to go off again to the ends of the earth and lose himself.
But for the present life followed an uneventful course. Since Lance's display of fireworks at Hughie's luncheon-party, Hughie's friends had studiously avoided the mention of the word money in their late host's presence; and Master Lance himself, evidently realizing that, however excellent his intentions or pure his motives, he had made an unmitigated ass of himself, avoided Hughie's society entirely.
Of Joan Hughie saw little until the beginning of October, when he arrived at Manors to shoot pheasants.