"To that extent?" sneered Robson. "Bless me, you talk as if it were no more than presenting him with a twenty pound note, instead of its being what it is--giving him the practical control of many a thousand pounds every year. There'll be more heard of this--yet!" He went away angrier than when he came, and Eldrick looked at Collingwood and shook his head. "I don't see what more there is to do," he said. "So far as I can make out, or see, Pratt is within his rights. If Mrs. Mallathorpe liked to entrust her business to him, what is to prevent it? I see nothing at all strange in that. But there is a fact which does seem uncommonly strange to me! It's this--how is it that Mrs. Mallathorpe doesn't consult, hasn't consulted--doesn't inform, hasn't informed--her daughter about all this?" "That," answered Collingwood, "is precisely what strikes me--and I can't give any explanation. Nor, I believe, can Miss Mallathorpe." He felt obliged to go back to Normandale, and tell Nesta the result of the afternoon's proceedings. And having seen during his previous visit how angry she could be, he was not surprised to see her become angrier and more determined than ever. "I will not have Mr. Pratt coming here!" she exclaimed. "He shall not see my mother--under my roof, at any rate. I don't believe she sent for him." "Mr. Eldrick saw her letter!" interrupted Collingwood quietly. "Then that man made her write it while he was here!" exclaimed Nesta. "As to the relationship--it may be so. I never heard of it. But I don't care what relation he is to my mother--he is not going to interfere with her affairs!" "The strange thing," said Collingwood, as pointedly as was consistent with kindness, "is that your mother--just now, at any rate--doesn't seem to be taking you into her confidence." Nesta looked steadily at him for a moment, without speaking. When she did speak it was with decision. "Quite so!" she said. "She is keeping something from me! And if she won't tell me things--well, I must find them out for myself." She would say no more than that, and Collingwood left her. And as he went back to Barford he cursed Linford Pratt soundly for a deep and underhand rogue who was most certainly playing some fine game. But Pratt himself was quite satisfied--up to that point. He had won his first trick and he had splendid cards still left in his hand. And he was reckoning his chances on them one morning a little later when a ring at his bell summoned him to his office door--whereat stood Nesta Mallathorpe, alone. CHAPTER XIV CARDS ON THE TABLE Had any third person been present, closely to observe the meeting of these two young people, he would have seen that the one to whom it was unexpected and a surprise was outwardly as calm and self-possessed as if the other had come there to keep an ordinary business appointment.