"Does that mean you really won't stop on?"
"I think not, thanks. It's awfully good of you to suggest it. I can look in, of course, if Mrs Lenox wants any more sittings. But I may as well stick to my arrangement and go before she gets sick of having me on her hands."
"You're a long way ahead of that, I fancy," Lenox remarked, with an odd change of tone.
For a statement of that kind Richardson had no answer. He could only acknowledge it with a rueful smile that did not lift the shadow from his eyes. There were no sunbeams caught in Quita's 'bits of sea water' just then; and for a while silence and tobacco-smoke reigned in the room. Richardson, who appeared to be reading the closely written sheet of foolscap at his elbow, was casting about in his mind for the best means of saying that which must be said; while Lenox, watching him keenly, arrived at the masculine conclusion that Dick had 'come a cropper' over something, and possibly needed his help.
"Anything on your mind, old chap?" he asked bluntly, when the silence had lasted nearly five minutes. And Richardson, taking his resolution in both hands, looked up from the meaningless page.
"Yes, that's about it. Don't misunderstand me, Lenox. I'd sooner work with you than with any man in creation; but—there are difficulties . . . I can't put it plainer—and I'm thinking of applying for a Staff appointment. My uncle in the Secretariat would give me a helping hand, if you'd forward the thing with a decent recommendation. But if you think me too much of a duffer for Staff work, I must try—for an exchange——"
He could get no further; and Lenox, leaning across the corner of the table, scrutinised his face with eyes that penetrated like a searchlight.
"Well . . . I'm damned!" he said slowly. "Am I to understand that after all we've pulled through together, you want to get away from the Battery at any price?"
"It's not a question of what I want to do; it's what I've got to do," the other answered, averting his eyes.
"My good Dick, you're talking in riddles. Have you taken temporary leave of your senses? Or is it a case of 'urgent private affairs'?"