"You silly boy!" she said. "There is nothing dishonourable in what you do!"
"Possibly not. But how would your father like to know of my position."
She lowered her eyes again.
"Is my father indebted to Julius Rohscheimer in any way, Dick?" she asked suddenly.
Haredale laughed nervously.
"Rohscheimer does not honour me with the whole of his confidence in financial matters," he replied. "It is a question Adeler would be better able to answer."
"Mr. Adeler, yes. What a singular man! Do you know, Dick, in spite of father's ideas respecting our old English aristocracy, I have sometimes felt, in Mr. Adeler's presence, that he, though a Jew, was a thousand times more of an aristocrat than I?"
Haredale glanced at her oddly.
"I have at times been conscious of a similar feeling!" he said. "No doubt one's instincts are true enough. Adeler's pedigree conceivably may go back to Jewish nobles who entertained monarchs in their marble palaces when the Eversheds and Haredales considered several streaks of red ochre an adequate costume for the most important functions."
He laughed boyishly at his own words.