This Man's Wife Part 31

The child obeyed, and the baronet gravely moistened his handkerchief thereon, and, taking the soft little chin in one gloved hand, carefully removed a tiny purple fruit-stain.

"That's better. Now you are fit to kiss." He bent down, and kissed the child slowly. "Don't like me much, do you, Julia?"

"I don't know," said the child, looking up at him with her large serious eyes. "Sometimes I do, when you don't talk crossly to me; but sometimes I don't. I don't like you half so well as I do Mr Bayle."

"But he's always setting you hard lessons, and puzzling your brains, isn't he?"

"No," said the child, shaking her head. "Oh, no! we have such fun over my lessons every morning! But I do like you too--a little."

"Come, that's a comfort!" said Sir Gordon, rising again. "There, I must go. I want to carry off Mr Bayle--on business."

Mrs Hallam glanced sharply from one to the other, and then, to conceal her agitation, bent down over her child, and began to smooth her tangled curls.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

SIR GORDON BOURNE ASKS QUESTIONS.

"I want a few words with you, Bayle," said Sir Gordon, as the pair walked back towards the town.

"Shall we talk here, or will you come to my rooms?" and he indicated Mrs Pinet's house, to which he had moved when Hallam married.

"Your rooms! No, man; I never feel as if I can breathe in your stuffy lodgings. How can you exist in them?"

"I do, and very happily," said Bayle, laughing. "Shall we go to your private room at the bank?"

"Bless my soul! no, man!" cried Sir Gordon hastily. "The very last place. Let's get out in the fields, and talk there. More room, and no tattling, inquisitive people about. No Gemps."

"Very good," said Bayle, wondering, and very anxious at heart, for he knew the baronet's proclivities.

They turned off on to one of the footpaths, chatting upon indifferent matters, till all at once Sir Gordon exclaimed:

"'Pon my honour, I don't think I like you, Bayle."

"I'm very sorry, Sir Gordon, because I really do like you. I've always found you a true gentleman at heart, and--"

"Stuff, sir! Silence, sir! Egad, sir, will you hold your tongue?

Talking such nonsense to a confirmed valetudinarian with a soured life, and--pis.h.!.+ I don't want to talk about myself. I was going to say that I did not like you."

"You did say so," replied the curate, smiling.

"Ah! well, it's the truth. Why do you stop here?"

"To annoy you, perhaps," said Bayle laughing. "Well, no: I like my people, and I'm vain enough to think I am able to do a little good."

"You do, Bayle, you do," said Sir Gordon, taking his arm and leaning upon him in a confidential way. "You're a good fellow, Bayle; and Castor here would miss you horribly, if you left."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"It is not nonsense, sir. Why, you do more good among the people in one year than I have done in all my life."

"Well, I think I have amerced you pretty well lately for my poor, Sir Gordon."

"Yes, man, but it was your doing. I shouldn't have given a s.h.i.+lling.

But look here, I was going to say, why is it that I come to you, and make such a confidant of you?"

"Do you wish to confide something to me now?"

"Yes, of course; one can't go to one's solicitor, and I've no friends.

Plenty of club acquaintances: but no friends. There, don't shake your head like that, man. Well, only a few. By-the-way, charming little girl that."

"What, little Julie?" cried Bayle, with his cheeks flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure.

"Yes; and your prime favourite, I see. I don't like her, though. Too much of her father."

"She has his eyes and hair," said Bayle thoughtfully; "but there is the sweet grave look in her face that her mother used to wear when I first came to Castor."

"Hus.h.!.+ Silence! Hold your tongue!" cried Sir Gordon impatiently.

"Look here--her father--I want to talk about him."

"About Mr Hallam?"

"Yes. What do you think of him now?"

Bayle laid his hand upon Sir Gordon's.

"We are old friends, Sir Gordon; I know your little secret; you know mine. Don't ask me that question."

"As a very old trusty friend I do ask you. Bayle, it is a duty. Look here, man; I hold an important trust in connection with that bank. I'm afraid I have not done my duty. It is irksome to me, a wealthy man, and I am so much away yachting. Let me see; you never have had dealings with us."

"No, Sir Gordon, never."

"Well, as I was saying, I am so much away. You are always feeling the pulses of the people. Now, as you are a great deal at Hallam's, tell me as a friend in a peculiar position, what do you think of Hallam?"

"Do you mean as a friend?"

"I mean as a business man, as our manager. What do the people say?"

"I cannot retail to you all their little tattle, Sir Gordon. Look here, sir, what do you mean? Speak out."

Sir Gordon grew red and was silent for a few minutes.

"I will be plain, Bayle," he said at last. "The fact is I am very uneasy."

"About Hallam?"

"Yes. He occupies a position of great trust."

"But surely Mr Trampleasure shares it."