"Then that man made her write it while he was here!" exclaimed Nesta.
"As to the relationship--it may be so. I never heard of it. But I don't
care what relation he is to my mother--he is not going to interfere with
her affairs!"
"The strange thing," said Collingwood, as pointedly as was consistent
with kindness, "is that your mother--just now, at any rate--doesn't seem
to be taking you into her confidence."
Nesta looked steadily at him for a moment, without speaking. When she
did speak it was with decision.
"Quite so!" she said. "She is keeping something from me! And if she
won't tell me things--well, I must find them out for myself."
She would say no more than that, and Collingwood left her. And as he
went back to Barford he cursed Linford Pratt soundly for a deep and
underhand rogue who was most certainly playing some fine game.
But Pratt himself was quite satisfied--up to that point. He had won his
first trick and he had splendid cards still left in his hand. And he was
reckoning his chances on them one morning a little later when a ring at
his bell summoned him to his office door--whereat stood Nesta
Mallathorpe, alone.
CHAPTER XIV
CARDS ON THE TABLE
Had any third person been present, closely to observe the meeting of
these two young people, he would have seen that the one to whom it was
unexpected and a surprise was outwardly as calm and self-possessed as if
the other had come there to keep an ordinary business appointment.
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