He put down the stump of his cigar, which unlike Anstice he had smoked to the end, and looked at the other man with a kindly eye.
"Look here, Anstice, why shouldn't we go--you and I--to visit Mrs. Carstairs now?"
"Now?" Anstice was somewhat taken aback at the proposal.
"Yes. Why not? There's no time like the present. It is barely six o'clock, and she will certainly be at home."
"But--won't she be at church?" Anstice felt suddenly unwilling to go into the matter with the mistress of Cherry Orchard.
"Not she! Don't you know Chloe only goes to church once in a blue moon?" Sir Richard laughed breezily. "I don't blame her--I expect she feels she owes Providence a grudge--but anyway she will be at home to-night. And--another inducement--Tochatti will almost certainly be at her church. Those Catholics are a queer lot," said Sir Richard, who was a Protestant of the old school. "They will cheat you and lie to you--aye, and half murder you, on a Saturday night--and turn up at Mass without fail on Sunday morning!"
"Yes, I know Tochatti does go to the Roman Catholic chapel at night," owned Anstice rather reluctantly. "Well, sir, if you really think the moment is propitious let us go by all means. After all, it is just possible Mrs. Carstairs may have had suspicions of Tochatti herself."
"Yes. I remember Iris often used to say she distrusted the woman--don't know why. I never paid much attention to her caprices," said Sir Richard with a smile; and Anstice made haste to seize the opportunity thus offered.
"Ah--by the way, what news have you of your daughter?" He could not call her by the name he hated. "She is still in Egypt, I suppose?"
"Yes. She and Bruce are somewhere in the Fayoum at present--he has been engaged on some irrigation job for a rich Egyptian of sorts, and he and Iris have been camping out in the desert--quite a picnic they seem to have had."
"Really?" For the life of him he could not speak naturally; but Sir Richard was merciful and ignored his strained tone.
"They sent me some photographs--snapshots--last week," said Sir Richard. "Would you care to see them? I have them here somewhere."
He opened a drawer as he spoke, and after rummaging in the contents for a few moments drew out half a dozen small prints which he handed to Anstice, saying: "Amateur, of course--but quite good, all the same. Oh, by the way"--he spoke with elaborate carelessness--"how did you come? Are you walking, or have you the car?"