"Had neater and sweeter things to look up, eh, Colonel?" Challoner put in again. "I believe you. Wish I'd ever had your luck."
Here resisted laughter got the better of him, jarring the quiet of the woods with a coarseness of quality startling even to his own ears. Nothing betrays lack of breeding more than a laugh. He knew this, and it galled him. He felt angry, and hastened in so far as he might to recover himself.
"Seriously, though, joking apart, I very much wish, as things turn out, you had kept in touch with the doctor," he said. "Then you would have been in a position to give me your views on this son of his. Mr. Smyrthwaite seems to have taken an awful fancy to him. But I don't attach much importance to that. He was ill and crotchety, just in the state of health to take unreasoning likes and dislikes. And I can't help being anxious, I tell you, Colonel. It does not affect my pocket in any way—I'm not thinking of myself. And I am no sentimentalist. My line of business leaves neither time nor room for that. Still I tell you candidly it goes tremendously against the grain with me to think of some irresponsible, long-haired, foreign, Bohemian chap being mixed up with the affairs of two refined English gentlewomen like the Miss Smyrthwaites. Of course he may turn out a less shadowy individual than I anticipate. Nothing would please me better than that he should. But, in any case, I mean to keep my eye upon him. He's not going to play hanky-panky with the ladies' money if Joseph Challoner can prevent it. I hold myself responsible to you, as well as to them and to my own conscience, Colonel, to keep things straight."
"I am confident you will do your best," the other replied, graciously. "And I trust you to consult me whenever you think fit. Don't hesitate to make use of me."
"I won't, Colonel. Make yourself easy on that point. I am greatly indebted to you. I won't."
The end of the long avenue had come into sight, where, between high stone gate-posts—surmounted by just-lighted gas-lamps—it opens upon the main road and tram-line running from Stourmouth to Barryport. After the silence and solitude of the woods the street appeared full of movement. A row of shop-fronts, across the roadway, threw a yellow glare over the pavement and on to the snow-heaps piled in the gutter. The overhead wires hummed in the frosty air. A gang of boys snowballed one another in the middle of the street, scattering before some passing cart, and rushed back, shouting, to renew the fight. Groups of home-going workmen tramped along the pavement, their breath and the smoke of their pipes making a mist about their heads in the cold winter dusk.
Challoner held out a paw-like hand.
"You'll excuse me if I leave you, Colonel?" he said. "I have outstayed my time already. I am afraid I must be getting home—a lot of work waiting for me. Good-night."
He turned away. Then, just inside the gates, a sudden thought apparently striking him, he hesitated and came back.
"By the way," he said, "I had been meaning to write a line to you to-day, but this sad business at the Tower House put it clean out of my head. I may just as well ask you by word of mouth. It'll save you the bother of a note. Woodford has nominated me for election at the club. Your name, as one of the oldest and most influential members, of course, carries much weight. If you second me you'll do me a great kindness."