At intervals he touched his office bell, and sent the clerk who appeared in answer, to Mr. So-and-So, to know about such and such an affair; or had a book big enough to have contained lengthy biographies of all the Lord Mayors of London from the time of Fitz Alwyn downwards brought in, from which he made a feint of extracting some useful information; but really all the time he was watching Mrs. Mortomley.
Without appearing to do so, he took her in from the enormous rolls and plaits on the very summit of which her bonnet was perched to the high-heeled boots, the tops of which reached high above her ankles. There was not a flower or ruche or frill or furbelow or bow about her dress of which he did not make a mental inventory. He noted the lace on her mantle, and the fit and colour of her gloves; and while he thus noticed her face, dress, manner, and tried to piece a consistent whole out of the woman's appearance, her position, and Kleinwort's account of her, the talk went on smoothly and easily enough at first.
"It will be necessary for us, Mrs. Mortomley, to know something about your own money in the event of any questions being asked at the meeting of creditors," began Mr. Swanland, after he had asked after Mr. Mortomley and apologised for bringing her to town. "It was left to you by a relation, I believe?"
"No," Dolly explained, "not a relation exactly. By my godmother, Miss Chippendale."
"Before or after your marriage?"
"You need not trouble Mrs. Mortomley with all those questions," Mr. Benning here interrupted. "I have been to Doctors' Commons and ascertained all the particulars."
Dolly turned and looked at him as he said this; turned sharply and suddenly, and then for the first time Mr. Asherill decided she was not a person whom it might be quite safe to offend.
Already he saw that there was secret war between her and Mr. Benning; already he understood she scented danger afar off, and was standing at bay waiting for its coming.
"I am sure," said Mr. Swanland in his smoothest tone, with his blandest and falsest smile, "I do not want to trouble Mrs. Mortomley unnecessarily about anything; but it is for the interest of all concerned that we should know at first precisely how we are placed. How we are placed," repeated Mr. Swanland with some self-satisfaction at the neatness of his sentence.
"That is just what I want to know," agreed Dolly, "though it seems to me we could scarcely be in a more miserable position than is the case at present."