enjoined it on him. Mr. Molloy, he explained, was planning to buy. up all the outstanding shares and very naturally wanted to secure them at a low price, which he would not be able to do if people went around shooting their heads off about what a terrific thing it was. The principle, he said, was the same as when someone gives you a tip on a fifty-to-one outsider straight from the mouth of the stable cat and tells you to keep it under your hat so as not to shorten the odds. He was conscious as he spoke of a slight feeling of guilt as he remembered that he had not pursued this sealed lips policy when chatting with Mr. Cornelius a few days ago, but too late to worry about that now, and anyway Mr. Cornelius, immersed as he was in house agenting and rabbits, was not likely to spread the news.
So when Sally rejoined Leila Yorke and started homewards with her in the car, it was not of the coming ten thousand pounds that she spoke, but of the Pen and Ink Club luncheon and Miss Yorke's speech.
'How did it go?' she asked. 'Were you in good voice?'
'Oh, yes.'
'What did you say?'
'The usual applesauce.'
'How many gargoyles were there?'
'About a million.'
'What were their hats like?'
'Nothing on earth,' said Leila Yorke.
Her manner was not responsive, but Sally persevered.
'I saw Mr. Saxby.'
'Oh?'
'He took it big, as anticipated. So did Popgood and Grooly. At least, Grooly. I didn't see Popgood. Grooly turned ashy pale, and said you ought to have your head examined.'
'Oh?'
'I left him ringing up Mr. Prosser, to tell him the bad news.'
'Oh, yes?' said Leila Yorke, and relapsed into a silence that lasted till the end of the journey.
Sally, as she put the car away, felt concerned. Taciturnity on this scale was quite foreign to her usually exuberant employer. It might, of course, be merely the normal let-down which results from sitting through a women's luncheon, but she felt it went deeper than that. Even after two hours of looking at members of the Pen and Ink Club Leila Yorke ought to be cheerier than this.
It seemed to her that what was needed here was a nice cup of tea. She had never herself attended one of these literary luncheons, but she knew people who had and had gathered from them that all the material, as opposed to intellectual, food you got at them was half a tepid grapefruit with a cherry in it, some sort of hashed chicken embedded in soggy pastry and a stewed pear. No doubt Leila Yorke's despondency was due to malnutrition, and this could be corrected with tea and plenty of buttered toast. She prepared these life-saving ingredients and put them on a tray and took them out into the garden, where Miss Yorke was sitting gazing before her with what in her books she liked to describe as unseeing eyes.
The listlessness with which she accepted the refreshment emboldened Sally to speak. In the months which she had spent at Claines Hall she had become very fond of Leila Yorke, and she hated to see her in this mood of depression.
'What's the trouble?' she asked abruptly.
She was aware that she was exposing herself to a snub. It would have been quite open to the other, thus addressed by a humble secretary, to raise a cold eyebrow and reply that she failed to understand her meaning. But the question had come at a moment when the novelist needed to unburden her mind. There is something about grapefruit with a cherry in it, hashed chicken in pastry and stewed pears that breaks down reserve and inspires confidences. She did not raise her eyebrows. She said, quite simply, as if she was glad Sally had asked her that:
Tm worried about Joe.'
Sally knew who Joe was: Leila Yorke's mystery husband, who had passed into the discard some years previously. There had been occasional references to him during her tenure of office, the latest only yesterday, and she had often wondered what manner of man he had been. She always pictured him as a large, dominant character with keen eyes and a military moustache, for she could not
So when Sally rejoined Leila Yorke and started homewards with her in the car, it was not of the coming ten thousand pounds that she spoke, but of the Pen and Ink Club luncheon and Miss Yorke's speech.
'How did it go?' she asked. 'Were you in good voice?'
'Oh, yes.'
'What did you say?'
'The usual applesauce.'
'How many gargoyles were there?'
'About a million.'
'What were their hats like?'
'Nothing on earth,' said Leila Yorke.
Her manner was not responsive, but Sally persevered.
'I saw Mr. Saxby.'
'Oh?'
'He took it big, as anticipated. So did Popgood and Grooly. At least, Grooly. I didn't see Popgood. Grooly turned ashy pale, and said you ought to have your head examined.'
'Oh?'
'I left him ringing up Mr. Prosser, to tell him the bad news.'
'Oh, yes?' said Leila Yorke, and relapsed into a silence that lasted till the end of the journey.
Sally, as she put the car away, felt concerned. Taciturnity on this scale was quite foreign to her usually exuberant employer. It might, of course, be merely the normal let-down which results from sitting through a women's luncheon, but she felt it went deeper than that. Even after two hours of looking at members of the Pen and Ink Club Leila Yorke ought to be cheerier than this.
It seemed to her that what was needed here was a nice cup of tea. She had never herself attended one of these literary luncheons, but she knew people who had and had gathered from them that all the material, as opposed to intellectual, food you got at them was half a tepid grapefruit with a cherry in it, some sort of hashed chicken embedded in soggy pastry and a stewed pear. No doubt Leila Yorke's despondency was due to malnutrition, and this could be corrected with tea and plenty of buttered toast. She prepared these life-saving ingredients and put them on a tray and took them out into the garden, where Miss Yorke was sitting gazing before her with what in her books she liked to describe as unseeing eyes.
The listlessness with which she accepted the refreshment emboldened Sally to speak. In the months which she had spent at Claines Hall she had become very fond of Leila Yorke, and she hated to see her in this mood of depression.
'What's the trouble?' she asked abruptly.
She was aware that she was exposing herself to a snub. It would have been quite open to the other, thus addressed by a humble secretary, to raise a cold eyebrow and reply that she failed to understand her meaning. But the question had come at a moment when the novelist needed to unburden her mind. There is something about grapefruit with a cherry in it, hashed chicken in pastry and stewed pears that breaks down reserve and inspires confidences. She did not raise her eyebrows. She said, quite simply, as if she was glad Sally had asked her that:
Tm worried about Joe.'
Sally knew who Joe was: Leila Yorke's mystery husband, who had passed into the discard some years previously. There had been occasional references to him during her tenure of office, the latest only yesterday, and she had often wondered what manner of man he had been. She always pictured him as a large, dominant character with keen eyes and a military moustache, for she could not
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