“Aren’t you painting Richards in rather too black a color?” Hastings protested. “Aren’t you unduly prejudiced against him? Premeditated murder, now?”
“Accident, my dear sir,” John Carrington said, ironically, “and underground accidents are almost too easy.”
Hastings hesitated. He looked at Ned.
The lad made a Gallic gesture that sent his hands far apart. “What would you?” it signified.
There was a tinge of mockery in his friendly smile. Yet something of confidence, too.
“My dear Hastings,” he said; “it is decidedly up to you. Our word or Richards’.”
Hastings flushed.
“My dear Ned,” he said, steadily, “that I should doubt your good faith is impossible. Nor,” he flared, “do I think you doubt mine. I have been thrust suddenly, through the great generosity of an uncle to whom I am as loyal as you are to your father, into a situation that I know nothing about. I have a manager in whom my uncle, a cautious man, has believed implicitly. You tell me this man is a rogue. But you may be wrong. I can’t condemn him unheard. One thing is certain,” he went on. “I shall find out. And if there has been anything crooked about our management, it shall be righted.” The line of his lips straightened. The muscles of his jaw grew tense. It was impossible to doubt that he meant what he said.
Both listeners believed him. Both admired him. But John Carrington looked his admiration frankly, and young Carrington dropped his eyelids satisfiedly over his.
“That is all we could ask,” said John Carrington, approvingly. “Now let me hear you youngsters chat about Paris.”