Over a supper of cold ham and cheese and beer they discussed Ransome's father's health and his mother's health, and Mrs. Usher's health, which was poor, and Mr. Usher's prospects, which were poorer, not to say bad. He leaned on this point and returned to it, as if it might have a possible bearing on the matter actually in hand, and with a certain disagreeable effect of craftiness and intention. It was as if he wished to rub it in that whatever else Randall forgot, he wasn't to forget that, that he had nothing to look to, nothing to hope for in his father-in-law's prospects; as if he, Mr. Usher, had arranged this meeting at the "Bald-Faced Stag" for the express purpose of making that clear, of forestalling all possible misunderstanding. He kept it before him, with the cheese and beer, on the brown oil-cloth of the table from which poor Randall found it increasingly difficult to lift his eyes.
It was almost a relief to him when Mr. Usher pushed his plate away with a groan of satiety, and began.
"Well, what's all this I hear about Virelet?"
Randall intimated that he had heard all there was.
"Yes, but what's the meaning of it? That's what I want to know."
Randall put it that its meaning was that it had simply happened, and suggested that his father-in-law was in every bit as good a position for understanding it as he.
"I dare say. But what I'm trying to get at is—did you do anything to make it happen?"
"What on earth do you suppose I did?"
"There might be faults on both sides, though I don't say as there were. But did you do anything to prevent it? Tell me that."
"What could I do? I didn't know it was going to happen."