"Because I had an idea. Don't interrupt, old man, or you'll get me muddled. Where was I?"
"I don't know."
"I remember. I'd just got the idea. I happened to know, you see, that Bennett and Mortimer were both frightfully keen on getting Windles for the summer, but my mother wouldn't hear of it and gave them both the miss-in-baulk. It suddenly occurred to me that mother was going to be away in America all the summer, so why shouldn't I make a private deal, let them the house, and make it a stipulation that I was to stay there to look after things? And, to cut a long story short, that's what I did."
"You let Windles?"
"Yes. Old Bennett was down on the dock at Southampton to meet Wilhelmina, and I fixed it up with him then and there. He was so bucked at the idea of getting the place that he didn't kick for a moment at the suggestion that I should stick on at the house. Said he would be delighted to have me there, and wrote out a fat check on the spot. We hired a car and drove straight over—it's only about twenty miles from Southampton, you know,—and we've been there ever since. Bennett sent a wire to Mortimer, telling him to join us, and he came down next day."
He paused, and looked at Sam as though desiring comment. Sam had none to offer.
"Why do you say you're in a hole?" he asked. "It seems to me as though you had done yourself a bit of good. You've got the check, and you're in the same house with Miss Hubbard. What more do you want?"
"But suppose mother gets to hear about it?"
"Well?"
"She'd be sorer than a sunburned neck."