"There's nothing like a fresh young mind, like a young lady's, for
settling business affairs. It would have taken you or me a long time to
work that plan out, wouldn't it, Henry? We should be worried over the
effect on our trusteeships and the big estates we've had the care of--"

"What about the big estates?"

Davenant noticed the tone in which Guion brought out this question,
though it was an hour later before he understood its significance. It
was a sharp tone, the tone of a man who catches an irritating word or
two among remarks he has scarcely followed. Temple apparently had meant
to call it forth, since he answered, with the slightest possible air of
intention:

"Oh, nothing--except what I hear."

While Miss Guion and Mrs. Fane chatted of their own affairs Davenant
remarked the way in which Henry Guion paused, his knife and fork fixed
in the chicken wing on his plate, and gazed at his old friend. He bent
slightly forward, too, looking, with his superb head and bust slightly
French in style, very handsome and imposing.

"Then you've been--hearing--things?"

Rodney Temple lowered his eyes in a way that confirmed Davenant--who
knew his former guardian's tricks of manner--in his suppositions. He
was so open in countenance that anything momentarily veiled on his part,
either in speech or in address, could reasonably be attributed to stress
of circumstances. The broad forehead, straight-forward eyes, and large
mouth imperfectly hidden by a shaggy beard and mustache, were of the