Squatted up on a crimson leather stool, I must have looked the picture of astonishment.
"Yes," he assured me, "there are divinities that shape our ends; and Mrs Bowater is one of them. If anything can hasten her husband's recovery—— But never mind that. She has left me in charge. And here I am. The question is, can we have too many trustees, guardians? Perhaps not. Look at the Koh-i-Noor, now."
I much preferred to continue to look at Sir Walter, even though, from the moment I had entered the room, at least five or six voices had begun arguing in my mind. And here, as if positively in answer to them, was his very word—trustee. I pounced on it like a wasp on a plum. It was a piece of temerity that saved me from—well, as I sit thinking things over in quiet and leisure in my old Stonecote, the house of my childhood, I don't know what it hasn't saved me from.
"Too many trustees, Sir Walter?" I breathed. "I suppose, not—if they are honest."
"But bless me, my dear young lady," his face seemed to be shining like the sun's in mist; "whose heresies are these? Have they given you a French maid?"
"Fleming; oh, no," I replied, laughing out, "she's a Woman of Kent, all but. What I was really thinking is, that I would, if I may—and please forgive me—very much like to show you a letter. I simply can't make head or tail of it. But it's dreadfully—suggestive."
"My dear, I came in certain hope of being shown nothing less vital than your heart," he retorted gallantly.
So off I went—with my visitor all encouraging smiles as he opened the door for me—to fetch my lawyer's bombshell.
Glasses on tip of his small, hawklike nose, Sir Walter's glittering eyes seemed to master this obscure document at one swoop.
"H'm," he said cautiously, and once more communed with the bust of Heliogabalus. "Now what did you think of it all? Was it worth six and eightpence, do you think?"