Being a very sweet-tempered girl, she was soon placated, and made no further allusion to the distasteful subject. Nothing of any moment had happened at Effington; there had been one dinner party during his absence, and there was to be another one on his next weekly visit, on the Saturday. “I think uncle is drawing in his horns a bit,” she observed. “He seems to be cutting it down to one dinner party a week instead of two or three. He has been up to London a good deal more lately; he says he has a great deal of business on. So that I daresay consoles him for the comparative lack of gaiety. But, of course, he’s never really happy unless he is entertaining.” “And I suppose he doesn’t really care twopence for the people on whom he lavishes so much of his money?” queried Lydon. “I’m sure he doesn’t,” was the answer. “It’s just a form of excitement. That’s the pity of it. I am fond enough of company in a reasonable sort of way, but then I would choose people I really liked for themselves, for their qualities, not because they lived in a big house and were important people in the neighbourhood.” He rather looked forward with distaste to his next visit to Effington. It would be so difficult to avoid showing a change of manner to Stormont. He knew that a dozen times in the day an almost irresistible impulse would overtake him, prompting him to tell the rubicund hypocrite that he knew him for what he was, the friend and abettor of Elise Makris, the decoy of a gang of blackmailers. The day would come when he must tell him, but for the present he must practise patience. He must wait till his case was strengthened, so as to leave Stormont no loophole for plausible explanation. If confronted now, how easy for him to say that he knew nothing of the girl’s criminal activities, that he could not be supposed to be aware she was leading a double life. He could hear him rolling out in an unctuous voice some such words as these: “My dear Leonard, do be reasonable. I made her acquaintance through Whitehouse, a most respectable man with whom I have been associated in business for years. I found she had great aptitude. She is useful to me, with her charm of manner, in many delicate and difficult financial negotiations with important people. The man Edwards is one of my trusted agents. I often send him when I cannot go myself, confident that he will look after my interests faithfully. Your suspicions are the merest moonshine.” He might even be able to wriggle his way out, with regard to the man John Whitehouse. He would say that he carried on two businesses under two different names for the sake of distinguishing them. That at Hornby Court he was Whitehouse, at his other offices Glenthorne.