Producing a parti-coloured silk handkerchief--brand new--he manipulated it in such a manner as to diffuse an odour of perfume through the room. My wife looked him up and down. Her tone was dry.
"Your sentiments do you credit."
"They do, I know it; but, such as they are, they are mine own." He coughed. "So far as I am personally concerned, financial considerations are as nothing. It is circumstances which weigh me down. Instead of one hundred pounds, suppose we say seventy-five--in a cheque and cash."
Lucy took upon herself to answer him--
"I am afraid we cannot say seventy-five."
"Merely as a temporary advance, till Monday. I expect remittances on Monday, very large remittances, from my agents."
Lucy's tone was even drier than before. "I am glad to hear it."
"Yes, quite so." The fellow glanced towards me. He came sneaking towards my bed. He spoke to me under cover of his hat. "I think, Mr. Tennant, if you were to ask your good lady to withdraw, and were to allow me to have one word with you, between ourselves, in private--just one--I know we should understand each other; I am sure we should."
I looked at Lucy. She also looked at me. I am bound to admit that what I saw in her eyes supplied me, to a certain extent, with the moral stamina in which, owing to the severe illness from which I had recently been suffering, I was temporarily deficient. I spoke to the fellow plainly--
"No, sir. As I have already told you, I have no secrets from my wife, and whatever you wish to say to me must be said while she is present."