"Have I what?"

"I mean the agreement Clifford signed."

Sir Francis, without knowing it, had stumbled upon the crucial weakness
of Larssen's daring scheme. But it would have taken a far shrewder man
than he to realize the vital import of the point from Larssen's easy,
almost causal answer:

"There's no signed agreement. We agreed the scheme in principle at the
interview in Clifford's office, and he left details to you and me. His
last words were: 'Tell my father-in-law to go ahead as quickly as he can
manage.'"

"But when I put this before St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate, they'll be
expecting me to--I mean to say, isn't it deuced irregular, you know?"

Larssen did not answer this for a moment. He had a keen appreciation of
the value of silence in business negotiations. He poured himself out
another glass of cognac and drank it off. His attitude conveyed a
contempt for Letchmere's cautiousness which he would be too polite to
put into words.

"If you'd sooner write to Clifford and have his agreement to the scheme
in black and white ..." was his studiously, chilly reply.

Olive put in a word: "I dislike all those niggling formalities."

"Business is business," quoted her father sententiously.