"Yes, yes; quite right--quite right."
"Horace hasn't come with me."
"Good!"
"He and George sometimes don't quite----"
"Hit it off? They're too much alike."
"Do you think so? I never saw-----"
"Not in face, not in face; but they've both got----"
Mr. Paramor's meaning was lost in a smile; and Mrs. Pendyce, who did
not know that the word "Pendycitis" was on the tip of his tongue, smiled
vaguely too.
"George is very determined," she said. "Do you think--oh, do you
think, Mr. Paramor, that you will be able to persuade Captain Bellew's
solicitors----"
Mr. Paramor threw himself back in his chair, and his hand covered what
he had written on his blotting-paper.
"Yes," he said slowly----"oh yes, yes!"
But Mrs. Pendyce had had her answer. She had meant to speak of her visit
to Helen Bellew, but now her thought was:
'He won't persuade them; I feel it. Let me get away!'
Again she seemed to hear the incessant clicking, to smell leather and
disinfectant, to see those words, "Bellew v. Bellew and, Pendyce."
She held out her hand.
Mr. Paramor took it in his own and looked at the floor.
"Good-bye," he said-"good-bye. What's your address--Green's Hotel? I'll
come and tell you what I do. I know--I know!"
Mrs. Pendyce, on whom those words "I know--I know!" had a strange,
emotionalising effect, as though no one had ever known before, went away
with quivering lips.
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