“I say, I am at the bottom of their plot,” flashed the Master. “In two days’ time I shall have every detail to put before the King.”
The Viscount regarded him unmoved.
“Go warily,” he said, and his cunning old face wrinkled into an unfathomable smile. “You stand dangerously high, John, and you are dangerously reckless, John.”
“And you, my lord?” demanded the Master.
“I? I do not meddle in your schemes, my son. I am a safe spectator—and I find it amusing—sometimes—now and then it is tiresome—your wife is tiresome, John.”
“You married me to her,” cried the Master bitterly. “For God’s sake, sir, remember that you thrust her on me before I was well out of petticoats.”
The Viscount frowned.
“I considered a Dalrymple able to manage a woman,” he said dryly. “And the marriage was very politic.”
“I do not doubt it, my lord,” answered the Master passionately. “But do not blame me for a woman not of my choosing.”
The father yawned. “I merely commented that she was tiresome,” he said. “And so are you at times—but she—is quite insufferable. I assure you this house with no other occupant but that sniveling woman is a miserable place. I cannot write here, I shall have my town house refurnished.”