The Borough Treasurer | Page 8

are you doing? Don't you
remember you asked Windle, and his friend Mr. Brereton, to supper at
eight o'clock. It's a quarter to eight now. Do come home!"
Cotherstone let out an exclamation which signified annoyance. The
event of the late afternoon had completely driven it out of his
recollection that Windle Bent had an old school-friend, a young
barrister from London, staying with him, and that both had been asked
to supper that evening at Cotherstone's house. But Cotherstone's
annoyance was not because of his own forgetfulness, but because his
present abstraction made him dislike the notion of company.
"I'd forgotten--for the moment," he called. "I've been very busy. All
right, Lettie--I'm coming on at once. Shan't be long."
But when he had left the telephone he made no haste. He lingered by
his desk; he was slow in turning out the gas; slow in quitting and
locking up his office; he went slowly away through the town. Nothing
could have been further from his wishes than a desire to entertain
company that night--and especially a stranger. His footsteps dragged as
he passed through the market-place and turned into the outskirts
beyond.
Some years previously to this, when they had both married and made
money, the two partners had built new houses for themselves. Outside
Highmarket, on its western boundary, rose a long, low hill called
Highmarket Shawl; the slope which overhung the town was thickly
covered with fir and pine, amidst which great masses of limestone crag
jutted out here and there. At the foot of this hill, certain plots of

building land had been sold, and Mallalieu had bought one and
Cotherstone another, and on these they had erected two solid stone
houses, fitted up with all the latest improvements known to the building
trade. Each was proud of his house; each delighted in welcoming
friends and acquaintances there--this was the first night Cotherstone
could remember on which it was hateful to him to cross his own
threshold. The lighted windows, the smell of good things cooked for
supper, brought him no sense of satisfaction; he had to make a distinct
effort to enter and to present a face of welcome to his two guests, who
were already there, awaiting him.
"Couldn't get in earlier," he said, replying to Lettie's half-anxious,
half-playful scoldings. "There was some awkward business turned up
this evening--and as it is, I shall have to run away for an hour after
supper--can't be helped. How do you do, sir?" he went on, giving his
hand to the stranger. "Glad to see you in these parts--you'll find this a
cold climate after London, I'm afraid."
He took a careful look at Bent's friend as they all sat down to
supper--out of sheer habit of inspecting any man who was new to him.
And after a glance or two he said to himself that this young limb of the
law was a sharp chap--a keen-eyed, alert, noticeable fellow, whose
every action and tone denoted great mental activity. He was sharper
than Bent, said Cotherstone, and in his opinion, that was saying a good
deal. Bent's ability was on the surface; he was an excellent specimen of
the business man of action, who had ideas out of the common but was
not so much given to deep and quiet thinking as to prompt doing of
things quickly decided on. He glanced from one to the other, mentally
comparing them. Bent was a tall, handsome man, blonde, blue-eyed,
ready of word and laugh; Brereton, a medium-sized, compact fellow,
dark of hair and eye, with an olive complexion that almost suggested
foreign origin: the sort, decided Cotherstone, that thought a lot and said
little. And forcing himself to talk he tried to draw the stranger out,
watching him, too, to see if he admired Lettie. For it was one of
Cotherstone's greatest joys in life to bring folk to his house and watch
the effect which his pretty daughter had on them, and he was rewarded
now in seeing that the young man from London evidently applauded

his friend's choice and paid polite tribute to Lettie's charm.
"And what might you have been doing with Mr. Brereton since he got
down yesterday?" asked Cotherstone. "Showing him round, of course?"
"I've been tormenting him chiefly with family history," answered Bent,
with a laughing glance at his sweetheart. "You didn't know I was raking
up everything I could get hold of about my forbears, did you? Oh, I've
been busy at that innocent amusement for a month past--old Kitely put
me up to it."
Cotherstone could barely repress an inclination to start in his chair; he
himself was not sure that he did not show undue surprise.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Kitely? My tenant? What does he know about
your family? A stranger!"