"What do you mean by that?" asked Norris.
"I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your family desire to see no more of you," said the lawyer. "O, they may be very wrong; but that is the impression conveyed, that is what I suppose I am paid to bring about, and I have no choice but to try and earn my hire."
"I would scorn to deceive you," said Norris, with a strong flush, "you have guessed rightly. My family refuse to see me; but I am not going to England, I am going to the islands. How does that affect the islands?"
"Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands," said the lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with a pencil.
"I beg your pardon. I have the pleasure of informing you," said Norris.
"I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that communication as official," was the slow reply.
"I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!" cried Norris.
"Hush! I allow no one to raise his voice in my office," said the lawyer. "And for that matter--you seem to be a young gentleman of sense--consider what I know of you. You are a discarded son; your family pays money to be shut of you. What have you done? I don't know. But do you not see how foolish I should be, if I exposed my business reputation on the safeguard of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so much and no more? This interview is very disagreeable. Why prolong it? Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my behaviour. Not otherwise."
"I am very fond of three hundred a year," said Norris, "but I cannot pay the price required. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again."
"You must please yourself," said the lawyer. "Fail to be here next quarter-day, and the thing stops. But I warn you, and I mean the warning in a friendly spirit. Three months later you will be here begging, and I shall have no choice but to show you in the street."
"I wish you a good-evening," said Norris.
"The same to you, Mr. Carthew," retorted the lawyer, and rang for his clerk.
So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous days in Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and he was already at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden brought him a Sydney paper, over which he had been dozing in the shadow of the galley, and showed him an advertisement.
"Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay at the office of Mr. ----, where important intelligence awaits him."
"It must manage to wait for me six months," said Norris, lightly enough, but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.