"Is—is there anything else in? I know you are a lady as wouldn't deceive me."
"Nothing," she answered.
"Or expected?" he went on.
"There is nothing expected," was the reply. "But something may come, although I do not think it in the least degree probable. If it does, I will say you are already in possession; no harm shall come to you."
"I must stay for a little while, for fear of the governor coming back, but I will leave before ten o'clock if that will do?"
"That will do," said Mrs. Mortomley.
What a contagion there is in vice!
As vice, or indeed as worse than vice, Williams regarded these mysteries with which Mrs. Mortomley was evidently au courant, and yet there seemed a fascination about it all to the butler.
As such things were to be, why should he not master their details? Although he despised the French, he knew a knowledge of their language sometimes stood a man in good stead, and in like manner if sovereigns were being flung about in this reckless fashion, why should he, through superior address, not have the manipulation of them? His knowledge of mankind taught him half-a-crown would have compassed Mrs. Mortomley's desires as completely as twenty shillings, and Williams sighed over that balance of seventeen shillings and sixpence, as Mr. Swanland had sighed over John Jones' two pounds ten shillings.