"Oh, proven, I take it. Yes, unquestionably proven. I never heard there was the slightest doubt about that."
"What a chattering fool the old bird is!" Challoner said to himself irreverently, adding, aloud: "Apparently, then, we may leave Master Bibby out of our count. That's a good thing, anyhow. I am extremely obliged to you for giving me such a clear account of the whole matter, Colonel. It explains a great deal. Really I can't be sufficiently glad that I happened to run across you this afternoon. I may call it providential. But now to go back to another young gentleman, Miss Joanna's coexecutor, who is not in the very least dead."
"Yes?" Haig inquired, with avidity. "Speak without reserve, Challoner. Ask me anything you are in any difficulty about."
"I don't want to abuse your good nature. And I don't forget you have seen a lot more of the world than I have. Your point of view may be different. I shall be only too glad if you can reassure me. For I tell you, Colonel, it makes me uneasy. England's good enough for me, England and Englishmen. I may be narrow-minded and insular, but I can do without the foreigner."
"Yes, and I'm not sure you are not right in that," the other said, rising at another clever cast. "Yes?"
"I am glad you agree. Well, this coexecutor whom we have to look after is, to all intents and purposes, a foreigner, that is to say, born abroad—a Parisian and a journalist. Ah, exactly! I am not sorry to see it strikes you as it did me, Colonel, when poor Mr. Smyrthwaite first broached the subject. Doesn't sound very substantial, does it? And when you remember the amount of money that will pass through his hands! Still you may be able to reassure me. By the way, I suppose he must be a relative of yours. His name is Adrian Savage."
"Never heard of him in my life," Haig exclaimed, irritably. Then, afraid he had altogether too roundly given away his ignorance, he went on:
"But wait a moment, wait! Yes, now I come to think, I do recollect that one of the Savages, a younger son, went into the medical profession. I never saw anything of him. There was a strong feeling in the family about it. Like marriage with a dissenter, they felt doctoring wasn't exactly the thing for a Savage. So he was advised, if he must follow the medical profession, to follow it at a distance. I remember I heard he settled in Paris and married there. This journalist fellow may be a son of his." The speaker cleared his throat. He was put about, uncertain what line it would be best to take. "At one time I used to be over there often. As a young man I knew my Paris well enough—"
"I'll be bound you did, Colonel," Challoner put in, with a flattering suggestiveness. "Silly old goat!" he said to himself.
"Yes, I do not deny I have amused myself there a little in the past," the other acknowledged. "But somehow I never looked Doctor Savage up. It was unfriendly, perhaps, but—well—in point of fact I never did."