Careful, indeed! What has a poor clerk
in a house-agent's office to fear from such a personage?"
The servant had reappeared with their second and last course.
For a few moments they spoke of casual subjects. Afterwards,
however, Tavernake asked a question.
"By the way," he said, "we are hoping to let Grantham House to
Mrs. Wenham Gardner. I suppose she must be very wealthy?"
Beatrice looked at him curiously.
"Why do you come to me for information?" she demanded. "I
suppose that she brought you references?"
"We haven't quite got to that stage yet," he answered. "Somehow
or other, from her manner of talking and general appearance, I do
not think that either Mr. Dowling or I doubted her financial
position."
"I should never have thought you so credulous a person," remarked
Beatrice, with a smile.
Tavernake was genuinely disturbed. His business instincts were
aroused.
"Do you really mean that this Mrs. Wenham Gardner is not a person
of substance?" he inquired.
Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.
"She is the wife of a man who had the reputation of being very
wealthy," she replied. "She has no money of her own, I am sure."
"She still lives with her husband, I suppose?" Tavernake asked.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
"I know very little about her," she declared. "Last time I
heard, he had disappeared, gone away, or something of the sort."
"And she has no money," Tavernake persisted, "except what she
gets from him? No settlement, even, or anything of that sort?"
"Nothing at all," Beatrice answered.
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