"Very good. This fellow seemed mad. He informed me, among other things, that he was no relation of mine."
"Quite so. Then he began to speak in high terms of my mother, for which I ought to have kicked him."
"Then he said that if I followed the wishes of my mother, there would be any amount of money for me. That was to come after I learned the truth. What is the truth?"
"How am I to know what he meant? Perhaps he called on the wrong Woodroffe. There's another man of your name, you know--Richard Woodroffe."
"I know. Little cad! Perhaps that may explain the whole thing. It never does to treat those outsiders as if they were gentlemen born, does it? Once in the gutter, always in the gutter, eh?"
"Look here, Sir Robert, you come here a good deal. My mother says she knew you years ago----"
"Well, there's something going on. She's miserable. I had hints from Molly--from a girl--as well as this gardener fellow--that there's something going on. Is it a smash? Has my mother chucked her fortune? The girl said something about losing everything. I can't get my mother to attend to business, and I must have some money soon. You're a man of the world, Sir Robert. There's a row on, you know."
"Another? Why, man, I hear you were engaged to Miss Woodroffe and to Miss Pennefather at the same time. There are the materials for a pretty row. Is there another?"
"Well, if my mother has got into a mess, I was thinking that it might be as well to make it up with Molly, and stand in with the gardener, and get as much as I can out of him."
"Perhaps--perhaps." He considered a little. "Look here, Sir Humphrey, I am on my way to see Mrs. Haveril. Be here--don't go away--I shall come back in an hour or two, with something to tell you."
When we are waiting for the call to do something--to say something--of cardinal importance; something that will affect the whole of our life, all that remains of it: when we are uncertain what will happen after or before we have said or done that something; then the very air round us is charged with the uncertainty of the time. Even the hall and the staircase of the Hôtel Métropole, when Molly entered that humble guest-house, seemed trembling with anxiety. Her cousin's rooms were laden with anxiety as with electricity.