“Now about this statement of account—­re Elizabeth Maldon, deceased,” he growled deeply.

“By the way,” Louis interrupted him.  “Is Julian back?”

“Julian back?  Not as I know of,” said Mr. Batchgrew aggressively.  “Why?”

“We thought we saw him walking down Moorthorne Road to-night.”

“Yes,” said Rachel.  “We both thought we saw him.”

“Happen he is if he aeroplaned it!” said Batchgrew, and fumbled nervously with the papers.

“It couldn’t have been Julian,” said Louis, confidently, to Rachel.

“No, it couldn’t,” said Rachel.

But neither conjured away the secret uneasiness of the other.  And as for Rachel, she knew that all through the evening she had, inexplicably, been disturbed by an apprehension that Julian, after his long and strange sojourn in South Africa, had returned to the district.  Why the possible advent of Julian should disconcert her, she thought she could not divine.  Mr. Batchgrew’s demeanour as he answered Louis’ question mysteriously increased her apprehension.  At one moment she said to herself, “Of course it wasn’t Julian.”  At the next, “I’m quite sure I couldn’t be mistaken.”  At the next, “And supposing it was Julian—­what of it?”

II

When Batchgrew and Louis, sitting side by side on the Chesterfield, began to turn over documents and peer into columns, and carry the finger horizontally across sheets of paper in search of figures, Rachel tactfully withdrew, not from the room, but from the conversation, it being her proper role to pretend that she did not and could not understand the complicated details which they were discussing.  She expected some rather dazzling revelation of men’s trained methods at this “business interview” (as Louis had announced it), for her brother and father had never allowed her the slightest knowledge of their daily affairs.  But she was disappointed.  She thought that both the men were somewhat absurdly and self-consciously trying to be solemn and learned.  Louis beyond doubt was self-conscious—­acting as it were to impress his wife—­and Batchgrew’s efforts to be hearty and youthful with the young roused her private ridicule.

Moreover, nothing fresh emerged from the interview.  She had known all of it before from Louis.  Batchgrew was merely repeating and resuming.  And Louis was listening with politeness to recitals with which he was quite familiar.  In words almost identical with those already reported to her by Louis, Batchgrew insisted on the honesty and efficiency of the valuer in Hanbridge, a lifelong friend of his own, who had for a specially low fee put a price on the house at Bycars and its contents for the purpose of a division between Louis and Julian.  And now, as previously with Louis, Rachel failed to comprehend how the valuer, if he had been favourably disposed towards Louis, as Batchgrew averred, could at the same time have