Ascough, on the morning of his return to London, took the opportunity
warmly to congratulate Brooks.
"Lord Arranmore has been marvellously kind to me," Brooks agreed. "To
tell you the truth, Mr. Ascough, I feel almost inclined to add
incomprehensibly kind."
The older man stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.
"Lord Arranmore is eccentric," he remarked. "Has always been eccentric,
and will remain so, I suppose, to the end of the chapter. You are the
one who profits, however, and I am very glad of it."
"Eccentricity," Brooks remarked, "is, of course, the only obvious
explanation of his generosity so far as I am concerned. But it has
occurred to me, Mr. Ascough, to wonder whether the friendship or
connection between him and my father was in any way a less slight thing
than I have been led to suppose."
Mr. Ascough shrugged his shoulders.
"Lord Arranmore," he said, "has told you, no doubt, all that there is to
be told."
Brooks sat at his desk, frowning slightly, and tapping the
blotting-paper with a pen-holder.
"All that Lord Arranmore has told me," he said, "is that my father
occupied a cabin not far from his on the banks of Lake Ono, that they
saw little of each other, and that he only found out his illness by
accident.
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