"Grey!"
"Yes, Sir Alexander."
"You helped me to put this fortune together for my daughter."
A bow of deprecation.
"You have been ten years now taking care of it for her."
"Yes, Sir Alexander." What was coming now? Could all this be a ruse? Was this serene interview to end in a storm of intolerable ruin? Had this old man been leading up with deceiving equanimity to some prodigious burst, some unendurable tempest of reproach?
"Will you go still farther?"
"In what way?"
"Will you act as one of the executors, the chief—no, as the sole, as sole trustee and guardian?"
"What! Sir Alexander, Sir Alexander, are you—are you trifling with me? If you are, give it up. I cannot, I will not, be trifled with." His face shrivelled up, and he covered it in his hands. For that brief space he thought all had been discovered.