“You're right there, sir! You're right there. I agree with you. I'm speaking of the French one next door, her name's Silverdale. My nephew was always hanging round her skirts, sir. I warned him against her, often enough.”
“I always knew something would happen!” Miss Hassendean declared with the air of a justified Cassandra. “And now it has happened.”
Sir Clinton returned to the main track.
“Have you any idea if he meant to spend the evening next door?”
Miss Hassendean interrupted before her brother could reply.
“He mentioned to me that he was going with her to the Alhambra to dance. I remember that, because he actually asked me where I was going myself to-night, which was unusual interest on his part.”
“Scattering his money, of course!” her brother rapped out angrily.
“He had money to scatter, then?” Sir Clinton asked casually. “He must have been lucky for his age.”
For some reason, this reflection seemed to stir a grievance in the old man's mind.
“Yes, he had about £500 a year of his own. A very comfortable income for a single young man. And I had to sit, sir, as his trustee; pay over the money quarterly to him; and see it wasted in buying jewellery and whatnot for that wench next door. I'm not a rich man, sir; and I give you my word I could have spent it better myself. But I'd no control over him, none whatever. I had to stand by and see all that good money flung into the gutter.”