He was away about a week. The day after his return, he appeared in Miss Wilcox’s presence as cool as if he had seen her but yesterday. Confronting her with that fathomless face he liked to show her, he first told her he had done nothing.
Let Mr. Ellin be as enigmatical as he would, he never puzzled Miss Wilcox. She never saw enigma in the man. Some people feared, because they did not understand, him; to her it had not yet occurred to begin to spell his nature or analyze his character. If she had an impression about him, it was, that he was an idle but obliging man, not aggressive, of few words, but often convenient. Whether he were clever and deep, or deficient and shallow, close or open, odd or ordinary, she saw no practical end to be answered by inquiry, and therefore did not inquire.
“Why had he done nothing?” she now asked.
“Chiefly because there was nothing to do.”
“Then he could give her no information?”
“Not much: only this, indeed—Conway Fitzgibbon was a man of straw; May Park a house of cards. There was no vestige of such man or mansion in Midland County, or in any other shire in England. Tradition herself had nothing to say about either the name or the place. The Oracle of old deeds and registers, when consulted, had not responded.
“Who can he be, then, that came here, and who is this child?”
“That’s just what I can’t tell you:—an incapacity which makes me say I have done nothing.”
“And how am I to get paid?”