As I say, he's a smart chap."
Collingwood offered no comment. But he was conscious that it would not
be at all pleasing to him to know that Linford Pratt held any official
position at Normandale. Foolish as it might be, mere inspiration though
it probably was, he could not get over his impression that Eldrick's
clerk was not precisely trustworthy. And yet, he reflected, he himself
could do nothing--it would be utter presumption on his part to offer any
gratuitous advice to Nesta Mallathorpe in business matters. He was very
certain of what he eventually meant to say to her about his own personal
hopes, some time hence, when all the present trouble was over, but in
the meantime, as regarded anything else, he could only wait and watch,
and be of service to her if she asked him to render any.
Some time went by before Collingwood was asked to render service of any
sort. At Normandale Grange, events progressed in apparently ordinary and
normal fashion. Harper Mallathorpe was buried; his mother began to make
some recovery from the shock of his death; the legal folk were busied in
putting Nesta in possession of the estate, and herself and her mother in
proprietorship of the mill and the personal property. In Barford, things
went on as usual, too. Pratt continued his round of duties at Eldrick &
Pascoe's; no more was heard--by outsiders, at any rate--of the
stewardship at Normandale.
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