"Flora described him as wearing a coat trimmed with fur; and Miles thought he spoke with somewhat of a foreign accent," replied Mrs. Castlemaine, deviating unconsciously from the question, as ladies sometimes do deviate.
"But don't you know who he was? Did he give no account of himself?"
"He calls himself Anthony Castlemaine."
As the name left her lips a curious kind of change, as though he were startled, passed momentarily over the banker's countenance. But he neither stirred nor spoke.
"When the card was brought in with that name upon it--James happened to be in the red parlour, talking with me about a new governess--I said it must be an old card of your father's that somebody had got hold of. But it turned out not to be that: and, indeed, it was not like the old cards. What he wants to make out is, that he is the son of Basil Castlemaine."
"Did James see him?"
"Oh dear yes, and their interview lasted more than an hour."
"And he told James he was Basil's son?--this young man."
"I think so. At any rate, the young man told Ethel he was. She happened to meet him as he was leaving the house and he introduced himself to her as Anthony Castlemaine, Basil's son, and said he had come over to claim his inheritance--Greylands' Rest."
"And where's Basil?" asked the banker, after a pause.