"We'll show that he did the work at that price," was the aggressive answer. "That will suffice."
"Very good," Delancy said, judicially. "Only, Morton, I venture to predict that you can't prove your verbal contract—not by any manner of means.... Who was with you at the time when that verbal agreement was made between you and Hamilton, as you allege?"
Carrington, who had been almost as greatly puzzled over the course of affairs as was Hamilton, now perceived something that was definitely within his own knowledge.
"Mr. Morton and I were together," he vouchsafed.
"And, so, you met the two Hamilton partners?" Delancy queried.
Both Morton and Carrington denied that the wife had been present at the interview.
"I have an idea," Delancy continued imperturbably, "that Mrs. Hamilton here would be quite willing to go on the stand and swear that she was present at the interview with her husband, to which you have referred. From something she has let drop to me, I have a very strong impression to this effect." There was a whimsicality in the old gentleman's tone that none save his niece marked.
"But I tell you," Carrington vociferated, "she wasn't there!"
"I hardly see what that has to do with it," Cicily interpolated languidly, from her place at the tea-table. "I remember it all quite perfectly." There was a smothered ejaculation from Morton, which sounded almost profane; Carrington's eyes were widely rounded as he stared at his hostess. "Yes," she went on, her musical voice gently casual in its modulations, "I remember it so well, because it was the day after—after—oh, well, after something or other! I shall remember what presently. And I wore—"