"You detect, very acutely, that I have a great influence over Mr.
Saffron. You ask, very properly, whether he has relations. I think you
threw out a feeler about his money affairs, whether he had anything to
worry about was your phrase, wasn't it? Am I misinterpreting what was in
your mind?"

As he spoke, he offered her a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece.
She took one and lit it at the top of the lamp-chimney; then she sat
down again in the big chair; she had not accepted his earlier invitation
to resume her seat.

"It was proper for me to put those questions, Mr. Beaumaroy. Mr. Saffron
is not a sound man, and he's old. In normal conditions his relations
should at least be warned of the position."

"Exactly," Beaumaroy assented with an appearance of eagerness. "But he
hates them. Any suggestion that they have any sort of claim on him
raises strong resentment in him. I've known old men, old moneyed men,
like that before, and no doubt you have. Well now, you'll begin to see
the difficulty of my position. I'll put the case to you quite bluntly.
Suppose Mr. Saffron, having this liking for me, this confidence in me,
living here with me alone, except for servants; being, as one might say,
exposed to my influence; suppose he took it into his head to make a will
in my favor, to leave me all his money. It's quite a considerable sum,
so far as our Wednesday doings enable me to judge. Suppose that
happened, how should I stand in your opinion, Dr. Arkroyd? But wait a
moment still. Suppose that my career has not been very, well,
resplendent; that my army record is only so-so; that I've devoted myself
to him with remarkable assiduity, as in fact I have; that I might be