‘By asking Miss Heathcote.’
‘Miss Heathcote! What nonsense you are talking. She knows no more about the man than I do.’
‘Oh!’—There was a most provoking tone of amused surprise in this exclamation.—‘You think so?’
‘I am sure of it.’
Wrentham, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his thumbs, whilst the tips of his fingers touched in front, stared at him seriously.
‘Then you don’t know what friends they are?—that they have been meeting daily—that they correspond?’
Philip did not immediately catch the significance of voice and manner, he was so much occupied with other matters.
‘I daresay, I daresay,’ was the abstracted answer; ‘he is always wandering about, and they like him at Willowmere.... Do you think we can manage to prepare the full statement of accounts by the morning?’
The mention of accounts did not please Wrentham. He jerked his head back with the grand air of one who, being accustomed to deal with large totals, could not think of giving his mind to petty details.
‘Oh, well, if you don’t mind, I have nothing more to say. As to the accounts, I don’t see what you want more than your books. They are made up, and the totals will be quite enough for Mr Shield. They are what, as you know, I always expected them to be—most confoundedly on the wrong side. I warned you’——