"And you want to find your way out?" Grenvil returned. "If you will ring the bell I will have you shown."
"Not until I have had the opportunity of talking a little to you. In our first conversation I was indiscreet. You will admit that, won't you?"
"Were you?" Grenvil answered vaguely. "I really don't remember Mr. Trent."
"Then you deny ever having seen me until we met by the salmon pool a few days ago?" Trent looked at him like a hawk.
"Then if you do, why don't you resent my butting in like this? Why don't you call some men-servants and have me flung out for a damned nuisance? Say I threatened you, say anything an innocent man could and would say. Your attitude doesn't fool me in the least. You are playing a deep game but I can play a deeper."
Grenvil shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of weariness. "There are many things I cannot explain," he said.
"You are going to begin right now," Trent said. He was not in a mood to be trifled with. He firmly believed that this man was planning to send him to gaol for a period of years so long that he would come out a whitehaired broken man.
He looked round frowning as steps sounded along the corridor and a tap came on the door.
"Let me in Arthur," he heard Lady Daphne say, "I've had a most extraordinary letter from Aunt Alicia. I must see you about it."
She rattled the locked door impatiently. Her brother walked over to it. Trent could offer no objection. He was confused and annoyed that at a moment such as this the girl must interrupt. To Anthony Trent she was as one above and apart. There was no use in concealing that he himself was a crook no matter how differently he pursued the profession from the lesser lights whom he despised. And Arthur Grenvil was as crooked as he with less excuse for it.
Lady Daphne stopped short when she saw Trent rise from his chair and bow. Her greeting was so wholly different from the friendly manner she had shown ere this, that he was at loss to understand it. He did not know that Mrs. Langley was the Aunt Alicia. He could only suppose her brother had hinted that he was not what he seemed.
"I was not told you were here," she said.
"I'm glad you've come," Arthur Grenvil said. Trent could see that he only spoke the truth. From what did he expect his sister to protect him. "Mr. Trent here has an idea I'm deliberately pretending not to know who he is."