"When did he leave England?"
Kettering told him, and Bland considered.
"So Lansing has been out, and no doubt going to a good deal of trouble, for two years," he said. "That's something beyond an ordinary executor's duty. What made him undertake it?"
Kettering smiled.
"It's an open secret—you're bound to hear it—that he had an admiration for Sylvia. Still, there's no ground for jealousy. Lansing hadn't a chance from the beginning."
Bland concealed his feelings.
"How is that? He must be an unusually good fellow if he stayed out there to look after things so long."
"For one reason, he's not Sylvia's kind. It was quite out of the question that she should ever have married him."
Feeling that he had, perhaps, said too much, Kettering began to talk of the next day's sport; and soon afterward Bland left him and went out on the terrace to smoke and ponder. Putting what he had learned together, he thought he understood the situation, and it was not a pleasant one, though he was not very indignant with Sylvia. It looked as if she made an unfair use of Lansing's regard for her, unless, in spite of Kettering's opinion, she had until lately been undecided how to choose between them. Nevertheless, Bland could not feel that he had now been rudely undeceived, for he had always recognized some of Sylvia's failings. He did not expect perfection; and he could be generous, when he had won.
He asked Sylvia no injudicious questions when they met the next morning, and during the day he called on Herbert Lansing, who was back in his office. The latter heard him explain his errand with somewhat mixed feelings, for there were certain rather troublesome facts that must be mentioned.