He paused again.

“And now I’ve given the whole show away,” he said.

Mr. Taynton made a comfortable sort of noise.  It was compounded of laughter, sympathy, and comprehension.

“You gave it away long ago, my dear Morris,” he said.

“You had guessed?” asked Morris, sitting down again with the same quickness and violence of movement, and putting both his elbows on the table.

“No, my dear boy, you had told me, as you have told everybody, without mentioning it.  And I most heartily congratulate you.  I never saw a more delightful girl.  Professionally also, I feel bound to add that it seems to me a most proper alliance—­heirs should always marry heiresses.  It”—­Mr. Taynton drank off the rest of his port—­“it keeps properties together.”

Hot blood again dictated to Morris:  it seemed dreadful to him that any thought of money or of property could be mentioned in the same breath as that which he longed for.  He rose again as abruptly and violently as he had sat down.

“Well, let’s play billiards,” he said.  “I—­I don’t think you understand a bit.  You can’t, in fact.”

Mr. Taynton stroked the tablecloth for a moment with a plump white forefinger.

“Crabbed age and youth,” he remarked.  “But crabbed age makes an appeal to youth, if youth will kindly call to mind what crabbed age referred to some five minutes ago.  In other words, will you, or will you not, Morris, spend a very dry three hours at my office, looking into the account of my stewardship?  There was thirty thousand pounds, and there now is—­or should we say ’are’—­forty.  It will take you not less than two hours, and not more than three.  But since my stewardship may come to an end, as I said, any day, I should, not for my own sake, but for yours, wish you to see what we have done for you, and—­I own this would be a certain private gratification to me—­to learn that you thought that the trust your dear father reposed in us was not misplaced.”

There was something about these simple words which touched Morris.  For the moment he became almost businesslike.  Mr. Taynton had been, as he knew, a friend of his father’s, and, as he had said, he had been steward of his own affairs for twenty years.  But that reflection banished the businesslike view.

“Oh, but two hours is a fearful time,” he said.  “You have told me the facts, and they entirely satisfy me.  And I want to be out all day to-morrow, as I am only here till the day after.  But I shall be down again next week.  Let us go into it all then.  Not that there is the slightest use in going into anything.  And when, Mr. Taynton, I become steward of my own affairs, you may be quite certain that I shall beg you to continue looking after them.  Why you gained me ten thousand pounds in these twenty years—­I wonder what there would have been to my credit now if I had looked after things myself.  But since we are on the subject I should like just this once to assure you of my great gratitude to you, for all you have done.  And I ask you, if you will, to look after my affairs in the future with the same completeness as you have always done.  My father’s will does not prevent that, does it?”