Hare frowned at her beneath his heavy eyebrows.
"There you are again, Mrs. Brand, with your visions and dreams. And you're so horribly right too, as a rule! I don't like your uncanny ways. Not so many years ago you would have been burned as a witch, and you'd have richly deserved it."
"It's her Celtic blood," Creagh explained, patting her hand affectionately. "I might have talked to you sordid English until doomsday and you would never have guessed what she has just stated as a fact. You're quite right, Evelyn; I've heard of a man who might do. A man of very high intelligence and power. He's young, and has made his way already, out of England. Some of you may even have heard of him; he specializes in the rather uncommon line of empire building."
"Well, that's a useful characteristic," said Meavy enviously, thinking of South Africa's many needs.
"Not a soldier, I hope," Hare grumbled, true to civilian prejudice.
"His name is Farquharson," said Creagh. "He was once Farquharson of Glune; his brother's story must be familiar to you all. I fancy things have always gone dramatically with him. He ran away from home at twelve years old; just how he kept body and soul together for the next few years no one knows. Then—through some accident—he came across and was of service to Martin Calvert, the millionaire who had just disinherited his heir, Jack Cummings, for becoming a Catholic."
Beadon whistled.
"The man who did so well in the last Indian famine business? A secular priest, isn't he? Self-exiled to the most fever-stricken district in the country?"
"Yes." Creagh hesitated. "It was a case of what is so often called 'The foolishness of the Cross.' Well, from a human point of view it certainly resulted in one man's loss and another man's gain. Calvert, like David, was cursing God in his heart when he met Farquharson. As for the lad—well, you know some of you how he was brought up in that stern Scotch school which begets defiance of God and enmity of man under some circumstances. I think the fact that Farquharson had thrown off every scrap of faith in things Divine and human appealed to Calvert doubly at that moment, and strengthened his desire to keep him. The Cummings episode was a bad blow."
"So he put Mr. Farquharson in his nephew's place?" said Evelyn.