'Have you found one yet?'
'I have. But I am not going to tell you who he is till the right time comes.'
Checkley grumbled inaudibly.
'If I had been less busy,' Mr. Dering went on, 'I might have married and had sons of my own to put into the House. But somehow, being very much occupied always, and never thinking about such things, I let the time pass by. I was never, even as a young man, greatly attracted to love or to young women. Their charms, such as they are, seem to me to depend upon nothing but a single garment.'
'Take away their frocks,' said Checkley, 'and what are they? All alike—all alike. I've been married myself—women are expensive frauds.'
'Well—things being as they are, Checkley, I am going to take a partner.'
'You'll do as you like,' said his servant. 'Mark my words, however; you've got ten years more of work in you yet—and all through these ten years you'll regret having a partner. Out of every hundred pounds his share will have to come. Think of that!'
'It is eight years, I remember,' Mr. Dering went on, 'since first I thought of taking a partner. Eight years—and for much the same reason as now. I found my memory going. There were gaps in it—days, or bits of days, which I could not recollect. I was greatly terrified. The man whom I first thought of for a partner was that young Arundel, now——'
'Who forged your name. Lucky you didn't have him.'
'Who ran away in a rage because certain circumstances seemed to connect him with the crime.'