"And you will be absent ten days or thereabouts, sir."
"That is the proposition as it stands now."
"Very well, sir. I shall want some money—not more than twenty pounds——"
Rupert opened a door leading to the library. He rented a two-story maisonette in Mayfair, with the drawing-room, dining-room, library, billiard-room and domestic offices grouped round the hall, while the upper floor was given over to bedrooms and dressing-rooms. His secretary was not arrived as yet; but he had already glanced through a pile of letters with the practiced eye of one who receives daily a large and varied correspondence.
He wrote a check for a hundred pounds, and stuffed the book into a breast pocket.
"There," he said to Jenkins, "cash that, buy what you want, and bring me the balance in five-pound notes."
"Yes, sir, but will you please remember to pack the clothes you are now wearing into a parcel, and post them to me this evening?"
"By gad, Jenkins, I should have forgotten that my name is stitched on to the back of the coat I am wearing. How will you manage about my other things?"
"Rip off the tabs, sir, and get you some new linen, unmarked."
"Good. But I may as well leave my checkbook here."