Mr. Manley expressed utter ignorance by looking blank and shrugging his shoulders.
"The jade! She's had six hundred a year for more than two years. Did she think it would go on for ever?" cried his employer.
"And why didn't she think it would go on for ever? Hey?" said Lord Loudwater in a challenging tone.
"Because there wasn't an actual deed of settlement," said Mr. Manley.
"The ungrateful jade! I've a good mind to stop it altogether!" cried his employer.
Mr. Manley said nothing. His face was blank; it neither approved nor disapproved the suggestion.
Lord Loudwater scowled at him and said: "I expect she said she wished she'd never had anything to do with me."
"I'll bet that's what she thinks," growled Lord Loudwater.
Mr. Manley let the suggestion pass without comment. His face was blank.
"And what's she going to do about it?" said Lord Loudwater in a tone of challenge.
"I'm damned if she is!" cried Lord Loudwater hastily, in a much less assured tone.
Mr. Manley permitted a faint, sceptical smile to wreathe his lips.
"What are you grinning at? If you think she'll gain anything by doing that, she won't," said Lord Loudwater, with a blustering truculence.
Mr. Manley wondered. Helena Truslove was a lady of considerable force of character. He suspected that if Lord Loudwater had ever been afraid of a fellow-creature, he must at times have been afraid of Helena Truslove. He fancied that now he was not nearly as fearless as he sounded. He did not say so.
His employer was silent, buried in scowling reflection. Mr. Manley gazed at him without any great intentness, and came to the conclusion that he did not merely detest him, he loathed him.
Presently he said: "There's a cheque from Hanbury and Johnson for twelve thousand and forty-six pounds for the rubber shares your lordship sold. It wants endorsing."
He handed the cheque across the table to Lord Loudwater. Lord Loudwater dipped his pen in the ink, transfixed a struggling bluebottle, and drew it out.
"Why the devil don't you see that the ink is fresh?" he roared.
"It is fresh. The bluebottle must have just fallen into it," said Mr. Manley in an unruffled tone.
Lord Loudwater cursed the bluebottle, restored it to the ink-pot, endorsed the cheque, and tossed it across the table to Mr. Manley.