“Oh, I say, that doesn’t matter.”
“I didn’t suppose it would, but all the same it’s just as well you should know.”
He talked gaily enough as we went along. I watched him keenly, and every now and then I noticed a shadow cross his face. I could make a fair guess at the cause of it. He was wondering how he should tell his sister that the offspring of a mésalliance in the family was her guest. He would no doubt have liked to ask me to say nothing about it, but was too well bred to do so. His chance came, however, when I informed him that I was in his uncle’s office.
He turned and looked at me in amazement.
“I say, there’s plenty of time—let’s go down this path. It’s a longer way round, but I want to talk to you. It’s all a bit sudden and interesting, isn’t it?”
We turned down a side path where the white loose sand was strewn with pine needles.
“You know,” said young Gascoyne, “my father and my uncle Gascoyne were not on speaking terms.”
“I gathered as much,” I remarked.
“When my cousin committed suicide I wanted to write and say how sorry I was, but my sister said she thought that it would look as if we were after his money, so I didn’t.”
I began to wonder if perhaps the desire to throw a very poor relation in the teeth of this independent young couple might not have had something to do with the action of Mr. Gascoyne in taking me into his business.