Lady Valentine was the widow of a baronet of good family and respectable means; the one was to be continued and the other absorbed by her son, young Sir Walter, now an Oxford undergraduate and just turned twenty-one years of age. Lady Valentine had a jointure, and Marjory a pretty face. The remaining family assets were a country-house of moderate dimensions in the neighbourhood of Maidenhead, and a small flat in Cromwell Road. Lady Valentine deplored the rise of the plutocracy, and had sometimes secretly hoped that a plutocrat would marry her daughter. In other respects she was an honest and unaffected woman.
Young Sir Walter, however, had his own views for his sister, and young Sir Walter, when he surveyed the position which the laws and customs of the realm gave him, was naturally led to suppose that his opinion had some importance. He was hardly responsible for the error, and very probably Mr. Ruston wouldhave been better advised had his bearing towards the young man not indicated so very plainly that the error was an error. But in the course of the visits to Cromwell Road, which Ruston found time to pay in the intervals of floating the Omofaga Company—and he was a man who found time for many things—this impression of his made itself tolerably evident, and, consequently, Sir Walter entertained grave doubts whether Ruston were a gentleman. And, if a fellow is not a gentleman, what, he asked, do brains and all the rest of it go for? Moreover, how did the chap live? To which queries Marjory answered that "Oxford boys" were very silly—a remark which embittered, without in the least elucidating, the question.
Almost everybody has one disciple who looks up to him as master and mentor, and, ill as he was suited to such a post, Evan Haselden filled it for Walter Valentine. Evan had been in his fourth year when Walter was a freshman, and the reverence engendered in those days had been intensified when Evan had become, first, secretary to a minister and then, as he showed diligence and aptitude, a member of Parliament. Evan was a strong Tory, but payment of members had an unholy attraction for him; this indication of his circumstances may suffice. Men thought him a promising youth, women called him a nice boy, and young Sir Walter held him for a statesman and a man of the world.
Seeing that what Sir Walter wanted was an unfavourable opinion of Ruston, he could not have done better than consult his respected friend. Juggernaut—Adela Ferrars was pleased with the nickname, and it began to be repeated—had been crushing Evan in one or two little ways lately, and he did it with an unconsciousness that increased the brutality. Besides displacing him from the position he wished to occupy at more than one social gathering, Ruston, being in the Lobby of the House one day (perhaps on Omofaga business), had likened the pretty (it was his epithet) young member, as he sped with a glass of water to his party leader, to Ganymede in a frock coat—a description, Evan felt, injurious to a serious politician.
"A gentleman?" he said, in reply to young Sir Walter's inquiry. "Well, everybody's a gentleman now, so I suppose Ruston is."
"I call him an unmannerly brute," observed Walter, "and I can't think why mother and Marjory are so civil to him."
Evan shook his head mournfully.
"You meet the fellow everywhere," he sighed.
"Such an ugly mug as he's got too," pursued young Sir Walter. "But Marjory says it's full of character."
"Character! I should think so. Enough to hang him on sight," said Evan bitterly.
"He's been a lot to our place. Marjory seems tolike him. I say, Haselden, do you remember what you spoke of after dinner at the Savoy the other day?"
Evan nodded, looking rather embarrassed; indeed he blushed, and little as he liked doing that, it became him very well.
"Did you mean it? Because, you know, I should like it awfully."
"Thanks, Val, old man. Oh, rather, I meant it."
Young Sir Walter lowered his voice and looked cautiously round—they were in the club smoking-room.
"Because I thought, you know, that you were rather—you know—Adela Ferrars?"
"Nothing in that, onlypour passer le temps," Evan assured him with that superb man-of-the-worldliness.
It was a pity that Adela could not hear him. But there was more to follow.
"The truth is," resumed Evan—"and, of course, I rely on your discretion, Val—I thought there might be a—an obstacle."
Young Sir Walter looked knowing.
"When you were good enough to suggest what you did—about your sister—I doubted for a moment how such a thing would be received by—well, at a certain house."
"Oh!"
"I shouldn't wonder if you could guess."
"N—no, I don't think so."
"Well, it doesn't matter where."
"Oh, but I say, you might as well tell me. Hang it, I've learnt to hold my tongue."
"You hadn't noticed it? That's all right. I'm glad to hear it," said Evan, whose satisfaction was not conspicuous in his tone.
"I'm so little in town, you see," said Walter tactfully.
"Well—for heaven's sake, don't let it go any farther—Curzon Street."
"What! Of course! Mrs.——"
"All right, yes. But I've made up my mind. I shall drop all that. Best, isn't it?"
Walter nodded a sagacious assent.
"There was never anything in it, really," said Evan, and he was not displeased with his friend's incredulous expression. It is a great luxury to speak the truth and yet not be believed.
"Now, what you propose," continued Evan, "is most—but, I say, Val, what does she think?"
"She likes you—and you'll have all my influence," said the Head of the Family in a tone of importance.
"But how do you know she likes me?" insisted Evan, whose off-hand air gave place to a manner betraying some trepidation.
"I don't know for certain, of course. And, I say,Haselden, I believe mother's got an idea in her head about that fellow Ruston."
"The devil! That brute! Oh, hang it, Val, she can't—your sister, I mean—I tell you what, I shan't play the fool any longer."
Sir Walter cordially approved of increased activity, and the two young gentlemen, having settled one lady's future and disposed of the claims of two others to their complete satisfaction, betook themselves to recreation.
Evan was not, however, of opinion that anything in the conversation above recorded, imposed upon him the obligation of avoiding entirely Mrs. Dennison's society. On the contrary, he took an early opportunity of going to see her. His attitude towards her was one of considerably greater deference than Sir Walter understood it to be, and he had a high idea of the value of her assistance. And he did not propose to deny himself such savour of sentiment as the lady would allow; and she generally allowed a little. He intended to say nothing about Ruston, but as it happened that Mrs. Dennison's wishes set in an opposing direction, he had not been long in the drawing room at Curzon Street before he found himself again with the name of his enemy on his lips. He spoke with refreshing frankness and an engaging confidence in his hostess' sympathy. Mrs. Dennison had no difficulty in seeing that he had a special reason for his bitterness.
"Is it only because he called you Ganymede? And it's a very good name for you, Mr. Haselden."
To be compared to Ganymede in private by a lady and in public by a scoffer, are things very different. Evan smiled complacently.
"There's more than that, isn't there?" asked Mrs. Dennison.
Evan admitted that there was more, and, in obedience to some skilful guidance, he revealed what there was more—what beyond mere offended dignity—between himself and Mr. Ruston. He had to complain of no lack of interest on the part of his listener. Mrs. Dennison questioned him closely as to his grounds for anticipating Ruston's rivalry. The idea was evidently quite new to her; and Evan was glad to detect her reluctance to accept it—she must think as he did about Willie Ruston. The tangible evidence appeared on examination reassuringly small, and Evan, by a strange conversion, found himself driven to defend his apprehensions by insisting on just that power of attraction in his foe which he had begun by denying altogether. But that, Mrs. Dennison objected, only showed, even if it existed, that Marjory might like Ruston, not that Ruston would return her liking. On the whole Mrs. Dennison comforted him, and, dismissing Ruston from the discussion, said with a smile,
"So you're thinking of settling down already, are you?"
"I say, Mrs. Dennison, you've always been awfully good to me; I wonder if you'd help me in this?"
"How could I help you?"
"Oh, lots of ways. Well, for instance, old Lady Valentine doesn't ask me there often. You see, I haven't got any money."
"Poor boy! Of course you haven't. Nice young men never have any money."
"So I don't get many chances of seeing her."
"And I might arrange meetings for you? That's how I could help? Now, why should I help?"
Evan was encouraged by this last question, put in his friend's doubtfully-serious doubtfully-playful manner.
"It needn't," he said, in a tone rather more timid than young Sir Walter would have expected, "make any difference to our friendship, need it? If it meant that——"
The sentence was left in expressive incompleteness.
Mrs. Dennison wanted to laugh; but why should she hurt his feelings? He was a pleasant boy, and, in spite of his vanity, really a clever one. He had been a little spoilt; that was all. She turned her laugh in another direction.
"Berthe Cormack would tell you that it would be sure to intensify it," she said. "Seriously, I shan't hate you for marrying, and I don't suppose Marjory will hate me."
"Then" (Mrs. Dennison had to smile at that little word), "you'll help me?"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Dennison, allowing her smile to become manifest.
"You won't be against me?"
"Perhaps not."
"Good-bye," said Evan, pressing her hand.
He had enjoyed himself very much, and Mrs. Dennison was glad that she had been good-natured, and had not laughed.
"Good-bye, and I hope you'll be very happy, if you succeed. And—Evan—don't kill Mr. Ruston!"
The laugh came at last, but he was out of the door in time, and Mrs. Dennison had no leisure to enjoy it fully, for, the moment her visitor was gone, Mr. Belford and Lord Semingham were announced. They came together, seeking Harry Dennison. There was a "little hitch" of some sort in the affairs of the Omofaga Company—nothing of consequence, said Mr. Belford reassuringly. Mrs. Dennison explained that Harry Dennison had gone off to call on Mr. Ruston.
"Oh, then he knows by now," said Semingham in a tone of relief.
"And it'll be all right," added Belford contentedly.
"Mr. Belford," said Mrs. Dennison, "I'm living in an atmosphere of Omofaga. I eat it, and drink it, and wear it, and breathe it. And, what in the end, is it?"
"Ask Ruston," interposed Semingham.
"I did; but I don't think he told me."
"But surely, my dear Mrs. Dennison, your husband takes you into his confidence?" suggested Mr. Belford.
Mrs. Dennison smiled, as she replied,
"Oh, yes, I know what you're doing. But I want to know why you're doing it. I don't believe you'll ever get anything out of it, you know."
"Oh, directors always get something," protested Semingham. "Penal servitude sometimes, but always something."
"I've never had such implicit faith in any undertaking in my life," asserted Mr. Belford. "And I know that your husband shares my views. It's bound to be the greatest success of the day. Ah, here's Dennison!"
Harry came in wiping his brow. Belford rushed to him, and drew him to the window, button-holing him with decision. Lord Semingham smiled lazily and pulled his whisker.
"Don't you want to hear the news?" Mrs. Dennison asked.
"No! He's been to Ruston."
Mrs. Dennison looked at him for an instant with something rather like scorn in her eye. Lord Semingham laughed.
"I'm not quite as bad as that, really," he said.
"And the others?" she asked, leaning forward and taking care that her voice did not reach the other pair.
"He turns Belford round his fingers."
"And Mr. Carlin?"
"In his pocket."
Mrs. Dennison cast a glance towards the window.
"Don't go on," implored Semingham, half-seriously.
"And my husband?" she asked in a still lower voice.
Lord Semingham protested with a gesture against such cross-examination.
"Surely it's a good thing for me to know?" she said.
"Well—a great influence."
"Thank you."
There was a pause for an instant. Then she rose with a laugh and rang the bell for tea.
"I hope he won't ruin us all," she said.
"I've got Bessie's settlement," observed Lord Semingham; and he added after a moment's pause, "What's the matter? I thought you were a thoroughgoing believer."
"I'm a woman," she answered. "If I were a man——"
"You'd be the prophet, not the disciple, eh?"
She looked at him, and then across to the couple by the window.
"To do Belford justice," remarked Semingham, reading her glance, "he never admits that he isn't a great man—though surely he must know it."
"Is it better to know it, or not to know it?" she asked, restlessly fingering the teapot and cups which had been placed before her. "I sometimes think that if you resolutely refuse to know it, you can alter it."
Belford's name had been the only name mentioned in the conversation; yet Semingham knew that she was not thinking of Belford nor of him.
"I knew it about myself very soon," he said. "It makes a man better to know it, Mrs. Dennison."
"Oh, yes—better," she answered impatiently.
The two men came and joined them. Belford accepted a cup of tea, and, as he took it, he said to Harry, continuing their conversation,
"Of course, I know his value; but, after all, we must judge for ourselves."
"Of course," acquiesced Harry, handing him bread-and-butter.
"We are the masters," pursued Belford.
Mrs. Dennison glanced at him, and a smile so full of meaning—of meaning which it was as well Mr. Belford should not see—appeared on her face, that Lord Semingham deftly interposed his person between them, and said, with apparent seriousness,
"Oh, he mustn't think he can do just what he likes with us."
"I am entirely of your opinion," said Belford, with a weighty nod.
After tea, Lord Semingham walked slowly back to his own house. He had a trick of stopping still, when he fell into thought, and he was motionless on the pavement of Piccadilly more than once on his way home. The last time he paused for nearly three minutes, till an acquaintance, passing by, clapped him on the back, and inquired what occupied his mind.
"I was thinking," said Semingham, laying his forefinger on his friend's arm, "that if you take what a clever man really is, and add to it what a clever woman who is interested in him thinks he is, you get a most astonishing person."
The friend stared. The speculation seemed hardly pressing enough to excuse a man for blocking the pavement of Piccadilly.
"If, on the other hand," pursued Semingham, "you take what an ordinary man isn't, and add all that a clever woman thinks he isn't, you get——"
"Hadn't we better go on, old fellow?" asked the friend.
"No, I think we'd better not," said Semingham, starting to walk again.
The success of Lady Valentine's Saturday to Monday party at Maidenhead was spoilt by the unscrupulous, or (if the charitable view be possible) the muddle-headed conduct of certain eminent African chiefs—so small is the world, so strong the chain of gold (or shares) that binds it together. The party was marred by Willie Ruston's absence; and he was away because he had to go to Frankfort, and he had to go to Frankfort because of that little hitch in the affairs of the Omofaga. The hitch was, in truth, a somewhat grave one, and it occurred, most annoyingly, immediately after a gathering, marked by uncommon enthusiasm and composed of highly influential persons, had set the impress of approval on the scheme. On the following morning, it was asserted that the said African chiefs, from whom Ruston and his friends derived their title to Omofaga, had acted in a manner that belied the character for honesty and simplicity in commercial matters (existing side by sidewith intense savagery and cruelty in social and political life) that Mr. Foster Belford had attributed to them at the great meeting. They had, it was said, sold Omofaga several times over in small parcels, and twice, at least,en bloc—once to the Syndicate (from whom the Company was acquiring it) and once to an association of German capitalists. The writer of the article, who said that he knew the chiefs well, went so far as to maintain that any person provided with a few guns and a dozen or so bottles of ardent spirits could return from Omofaga with a portmanteau full of treaties, and this facility in obtaining the article could not, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, do other than gravely affect the value of it. Willie Ruston was inclined to make light of this disclosure; indeed, he attributed it to a desire—natural but unprincipled—on the part of certain persons to obtain Omofaga shares at less than their high intrinsic value; he called it a "bear dodge" and sundry other opprobrious names, and snapped his fingers at all possible treaties in the world except his own. Once let him set his foot in Omofaga, and short would be the shrift of rival claims, supposing them to exist at all! But the great house of Dennison, Sons & Company, could not go on in this happy-go-lucky fashion—so the senior partner emphatically told Harry Dennison—they were already, in his opinion, deep enough in this affair; if they were to go any deeper, this matter ofthe association of German capitalists must be inquired into. The house had not only its money, but its credit and reputation to look after; it could not touch any doubtful business, nor could it be left with a block of Omofagas on its hands. In effect they were trusting too much to this Mr. Ruston, for he, and he alone, was their security in the matter. Not another step would the house move till the German capitalists were dissolved into thin air. So Willie Ruston packed his portmanteau—likely enough the very one that had carried the treaties away from Omofaga—and went to Frankfort to track the German capitalists to their lair. Meanwhile, the issue of the Omofaga was postponed, and Mr. Carlin was set a-telegraphing to Africa.
Thus it also happened that, contrary to her fixed intention, Lady Valentine was left with a bedroom to spare, and with no just or producible reason whatever for refusing her son's request that Evan Haselden might occupy it. This, perhaps, should, in the view of all true lovers, be regarded as an item on the credit side of the African chiefs' account, though in the hostess' eyes it aggravated their offence. Adela Ferrars, Mr. Foster Belford and Tom Loring, who positively blessed the African chiefs, were the remaining guests.
All parties cannot be successful, and, if truth be told, this of Lady Valentine's was no conspicuoustriumph. Belford and Loring quarrelled about Omofaga, for Loring feared (he used that word) that there might be a good deal in the German treaties, and Belford was loud-mouthed in declaring there could be nothing. Marjory and her brother had a "row" because Marjory, on the Saturday afternoon, would not go out in the Canadian canoe with Evan, but insisted on taking a walk with Mr. Belford and hearing all about Omofaga. Finally, Adela and Tom Loring had a rather serious dissension because—well, just because Tom was so intolerably stupid and narrow-minded and rude. That was Adela's own account of it, given in her own words, which seems pretty good authority.
The unfortunate discussion began with an expression of opinion from Tom. They were lounging very comfortably down stream in a broad-bottomed boat. It was a fine still evening and a lovely sunset. It was then most wanton of Tom—even although he couched his remark in a speciously general form—to say,
"I wonder at fellows who spend their life worming money out of other people for wild-cat schemes instead of taking to some honest trade."
There was a pause. Then Adela fitted her glasses on her nose, and observed, with a careful imitation of Tom's forms of expression,
"I wonder at fellows who drift through life insubordinate positions without the—thespunk—to try and do anything for themselves."
"Women have no idea of honesty."
"Men are such jealous creatures."
"I'm not jealous of him," Tom blurted out.
"Of who?" asked Adela.
She was keeping the cooler of the pair.
"Confound those beastly flies," said Tom, peevishly. There was a fly or two about, but Adela smiled in a superior way. "I suppose I've some right to express an opinion," continued Tom. "You know what I feel about the Dennisons, and—well, it's not only the Dennisons."
"Oh! the Valentines?"
"Blow the Valentines!" said Tom, very ungratefully, inasmuch as he sat in their boat and had eaten their bread.
He bent over his sculls, and Adela looked at him with a doubtful little smile. She thought Tom Loring, on the whole, the best man she knew, the truest and loyalest; but, these qualities are not everything, and it seemed as if he meant to be secretary to Harry Dennison all his life. Of course he had no money, there was that excuse; but to some men want of money is a reason, not for doing nothing, but for attempting everything; it had struck Willie Ruston in that light. Therefore she was at times angry with Tom—and all the more angry the more she admired him.
"You do me the honour to be anxious on my account?" she asked very stiffly.
"He asked me how much money you had the other day."
"Oh, you're insufferable; you really are. Do you always tell women that men care only for their money?"
"It's not a bad thing to tell them when it's true."
"I call this the very vulgarest dispute I was ever entrapped into."
"It's not my fault. It's——Hullo!"
His attention was arrested by Lady Valentine's footman, who stood on the bank, calling "Mr. Loring, sir," and holding up a telegram.
"Thank goodness, we're interrupted," said Adela. "Row ashore, Mr. Loring."
Loring obeyed, and took his despatch. It was from Harry Dennison, and he read it aloud.
"Can you come up? News from Frankfort."
"Can you come up? News from Frankfort."
"I must go," said Tom.
"Oh, yes. If you're not there, Mr. Ruston will do something dreadful, won't he? I should like to come too. News from Frankfort would be more interesting than views from Mr. Belford."
They parted without any approach towards a reconciliation. Tom was hopelessly sulky, Adelapersistently flippant. The shadow of Omofaga lay heavy on Lady Valentine's party, and still shrouded Tom Loring on his way to town.
The important despatch from Frankfort had come in cipher, and when Tom arrived in Curzon Street, he found Mr. Carlin, who had been sent for to read it, just leaving the house. The men nodded to one another, and Carlin hastily exclaimed,
"You must reassure Dennison! You can do it!" and leapt into a hansom.
Tom smiled. If the progress of Omofaga depended on encouragement from him, Omofaga would remain in primitive barbarism, though missionaries fell thick as the leaves in autumn.
Harry Dennison was walking up and down the library; his hair was roughened and his appearance indicative of much unrest; his wife sat in an armchair, looking at him and listening to Lord Semingham, who, poising a cigarette between his fingers, was putting, or trying to put, a meaning to Ruston's message.
"Position critical. Must act at once. Will you give me a free hand? If not, wire how far I may go."
"Position critical. Must act at once. Will you give me a free hand? If not, wire how far I may go."
That was how it ran when faithfully interpreted by Mr. Carlin.
"You see," observed Lord Semingham, "it's clearly a matter of money."
Tom nodded.
"Of course it is," said he; "it's not likely to be a question of anything else."
"Therefore the Germans have something worth paying for," continued Semingham.
"Well," amended Tom, "something Ruston thinks it worth his while to pay for, anyhow."
"That is to say they have treaties touching, or purporting to touch, Omofaga."
"And," added Harry Dennison, who did not lack a certain business shrewdness, "probably their Government behind them to some extent."
Tom flung himself into a chair.
"The thing's monstrous," he pronounced. "Semingham and you, Dennison, are, besides himself—and he's got nothing—the only people responsible up to now. And he asks you to give him an unlimited credit without giving you a word of information! It's the coolest thing I ever heard of in all my life."
"Of course he means the Company to pay in the end," Semingham reminded the hostile critic.
"Time enough to talk of the Company when we see it," retorted Tom, with an aggressive scepticism.
"Position critical! Hum. I suppose their treaties must be worth something," pursued Semingham. "Dennison, I can't be drained dry over this job."
Harry Dennison shook his head in a puzzled fashion.
"Carlin says it's all right," he remarked.
"Of course he does!" exclaimed Tom impatiently. "Two and two make five for him if Ruston says they do."
"Well, Tom, what's your advice?" asked Semingham.
"You must tell him to do nothing till he's seen you, or at least sent you full details of the position."
The two men nodded. Mrs. Dennison rose from her chair, walked to the window, and stood looking out.
"Loring just confirms what I thought," said Semingham.
"He says he must act at once," Harry reminded them; he was still wavering, and, as he spoke, he glanced uneasily at his wife; but there was nothing to show that she even heard the conversation.
"Oh, he hates referring to anybody," said Tom. "He's to have a free hand, and you're to pay the bill. That's his programme, and a very pretty one it is—for him."
Tom'sanimuswas apparent, and Lord Semingham laughed gently.
"Still, you're right in substance," he conceded when the laugh was ended, and as he spoke he drew a sheet of notepaper towards him and took up a pen.
"We'd better settle just what to say," he observed. "Carlin will be back in half an hour, and we promised to have it ready for him. What you suggest seems all right, Loring."
Tom nodded. Harry Dennison stood stock still for an instant and then said, with a sigh,
"I suppose so. He'll be furious—and I hope to God we shan't lose the whole thing."
Lord Semingham's pen-point was in actual touch with the paper before him, when Mrs. Dennison suddenly turned round and faced them. She rested one hand on the window-sash, and held the other up in a gesture which demanded attention.
"Are you really going to back out now?" she asked in a very quiet voice, but with an intonation of contempt that made all the three men raise their heads with the jerk of startled surprise. Lord Semingham checked the movement of his pen, and leant back in his chair, looking at her. Her face was a little flushed and she was breathing quickly.
"My dear," said Harry Dennison very apologetically, "do you think you quite understand——?"
But Tom Loring's patience was exhausted. His interview with Adela left him little reserve of toleration; and the discovery of another and even worse case of Rustomania utterly overpowered his discretion.
"Mrs. Dennison," he said, "wants us to deliver ourselves, bound hand and foot, to this fellow."
"Well, and if I do?" she demanded, turning on him. "Can't you even follow, when you've found a man who can lead?"
And then, conscious perhaps of having been goaded to an excess of warmth by Tom's open scorn, she turned her face away.
"Lead, yes! Lead us to ruin!" exclaimed Tom.
"You won't be ruined, anyhow," she retorted quickly, facing round on him again, reckless in her anger how she might wound him.
"Tom's anxious for us, Maggie," her husband reminded her, and he laid his hand on Tom Loring's shoulder.
Tom's excitement was not to be soothed.
"Why are we all to be his instruments?" he demanded angrily.
"I should be proud to be," she said haughtily.
Her husband smiled in an uneasy effort after nonchalance, and Lord Semingham shot a quick glance at her out of his observant eyes.
"I should be proud of a friend like you if I were Ruston," he said gently, hoping to smooth matters a little.
Mrs. Dennison ignored his attempt.
"Can't you see?" she asked. "Can't you see that he's a man to—to do things? It's enough for us if we can help him."
She had forgotten her embarrassment; she spokehalf in contempt, half in entreaty, wholly in an earnest urgency, that made her unconscious of any strangeness in her zeal. Harry looked uncomfortable. Semingham with a sigh blew a cloud of smoke from his cigarette.
Tom Loring sat silent. He stretched out his legs to their full length, rested the nape of his neck on the chair-back, and stared up at the ceiling. His attitude eloquently and most rudely asserted folly—almost lunacy—in Mrs. Dennison. She noticed it and her eyes flashed, but she did not speak to him. She looked at Semingham and surprised an expression in his eyes that made her drop her own for an instant; she knew very well what he was thinking—what a man like him would think. But she recovered herself and met his glance boldly.
Harry Dennison sat down and slowly rubbed his brow with his handkerchief. Lord Semingham took up the pen and balanced it between his fingers. There was silence in the room for full three minutes. Then came a loud knock at the hall door.
"It's Carlin," said Harry Dennison.
No one else spoke, and for another moment there was silence. The steps of the butler and the visitor were already audible in the hall when Lord Semingham, with his own shrug and his own smile, as though nothing in the world were worth so much dispute or so much bitterness, said to Dennison,
"Hang it! Shall we chance it, Harry?"
Mrs. Dennison made one swift step forward towards him, her face all alight; but she stopped before she reached the table and turned to her husband. At the moment Carlin was announced. He entered with a rush of eagerness. Tom Loring did not move. Semingham wrote on his paper,—
"Use your discretion, but make every effort to keep down expenses. Wire progress."
"Use your discretion, but make every effort to keep down expenses. Wire progress."
"Will that do?" he asked, handing the paper to Harry Dennison and leaning back with a smile on his face; and, though he handed the paper to Harry, he looked at Mrs. Dennison.
Mrs. Dennison was standing by her husband now, her arm through his. As he read she read also. Then she took the paper from his yielding hand and came and bent over the table, shoulder to shoulder with Lord Semingham. Taking the pen from his fingers, she dipped it in the ink, and with a firm dash she erased all save the first three words of the message. This done, she looked round into Semingham's face with a smile of triumph.
"Well, it'll be cheap to send, anyhow," said he.
He got up and motioned Carlin to take his place.
Mrs. Dennison walked back to the window, and he followed her there. They heard Carlin's cry of delight,and Harry Dennison beginning to make excuses and trying to find business reasons for what had been done. Suddenly Tom Loring leapt to his feet and strode swiftly out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Mrs. Dennison heard the sound with a smile of content. She seemed to have no misgivings and no regrets.
"Really," said Lord Semingham, sticking his eye-glass in his eye and regarding her closely, "you ought to be the Queen of Omofaga."
With her slim fingers she began to drum gently on the window-pane.
"I think there's a king already," she said, looking out into the street.
"Oh, yes, a king," he answered with a laugh.
Mrs. Dennison looked round. He did not stop laughing, and presently she laughed just a little herself.
"Oh, of course, it's always that in a woman, isn't it?" she asked sarcastically.
"Generally," he answered, unashamed.
She grew grave, and looked in his face almost—so it seemed to him—as though she sought there an answer to something that puzzled her. He gave her none. She sighed and drummed on the window again; then she turned to him with a sudden bright smile.
"I don't care; I'm glad I did it," she said defiantly.
Probably no one is always wrong; at any rate, Mr. Otto Heather was right now and then, and he had hit the mark when he accused Willie Ruston of "commercialism." But he went astray when he concluded,per saltum, that the object of his antipathy was a money-grubbing, profit-snatching, upper-hand-getting machine, and nothing else in the world. Probably, again, no one ever was. Ruston had not only feelings, but also what many people consider a later development—a conscience. And, whatever the springs on which his conscience moved, it acted as a restraint upon him. Both his feelings and his conscience would have told him that it would not do for him to delude his friends or the public with a scheme which was a fraud. He would have delivered this inner verdict in calm and temperate terms; it would have been accompanied by no disgust, no remorse, no revulsion at the idea having made its way into his mind; it was just that, on the whole, such a thingwouldn't do. The vagueness of the phrase faithfully embodied the spirit of the decision, for whether it wouldn't do, because it was in itself unseemly, or merely because, if found out, it would look unseemly, was precisely one of those curious points with which Mr. Ruston's practical intellect declined to trouble itself. If Omofaga had been a fraud, then Ruston would have whistled it down the wind. But Omofaga was no fraud—in his hands at least no fraud. For, while he believed in Omofaga to a certain extent, Willie Ruston believed in himself to an indefinite, perhaps an infinite, extent. He thought Omofaga a fair security for anyone's money, but himself a superb one. Omofaga without him—or other people's Omofagas—might be a promising speculation; add him, and Omofaga became a certainty. It will be seen, then, that Mr. Heather's inspiration had soon failed—unless, that is, machines can see visions and dream dreams, and melt down hard facts in crucibles heated to seven times in the fires of imagination. But a man may do all this, and yet not be the passive victim of his dreams and imaginings. The old buccaneers—and Adela Ferrars had thought Ruston a buccaneer modernised—dreamt, but they sailed and fought too; and they sailed and fought and won because they dreamt. And if many of their dreams were tinted with the gleam of gold, they were none the less powerful and alluring for that.
Ruston had laid the whole position before Baron von Geltschmidt of Frankfort, with—as it seemed—the utmost candour. He and his friends were not deeply committed in the matter; there was, as yet, only a small syndicate; of course they had paid something for their rights, but, as the Baron knew (and Willie's tone emphasised the fact that he must know) the actual sums paid out of pocket in these cases were not of staggering magnitude; no company was formed yet; none would be, unless all went smoothly. If the Baron and his friends were sure of their ground, and preferred to go on—why, he and his friends were not eager to commit themselves to a long and arduous contest. There must, he supposed, be a give-and-take between them.
"It looks," he said, "as far as I can judge, as if either we should have to buy you out, or you would have to buy us out."
"Perhaps," suggested the Baron, blinking lazily behind his gold spectacles, "we could get rid of you without buying you out."
"Oh, if you drove us to it, by refusing to treat, we should have a shot at that too, of course," laughed Willie Ruston, swallowing a glass of white wine. The Baron had asked him to discuss the matter over luncheon.
"It seems to me," observed the Baron, lighting a cigar, "that people are rather cold about speculations just now."
"I should think so; but this is not a speculation; it's a certainty."
"Why do you tell me that, when you want to get rid of me?"
"Because you won't believe it. Wasn't that Bismarck's way?"
"You are not Bismarck—and a certainty is what the public thinks one."
"Is that philosophy or finance?" asked Ruston, laughing again.
The Baron, who had in his day loved both the subjects referred to, drank a glass of wine and chuckled as he delivered himself of the following doctrine:
"What the public thinks a certainty, is a certainty for the public—that would be philosophy, eh?"
"I believe so. I never read much, and your extract doesn't raise my idea of its value."
"But what the public thinks a certainty, is a certainty—for the promotors—that is finance. You see the difference is simple."
"And the distinction luminous. This, Baron, seems to be the age of finance."
"Ah, well, there are still honest men," said the Baron, with the optimism of age.
"Yes, I'm one—and you're another."
"I'm much obliged. You've been in Omofaga?"
"Oh, yes. And you haven't, Baron."
"Friends of mine have."
"Yes. They came just after I left."
The Baron knew that this statement was true. As his study of Willie Ruston progressed, he became inclined to think that it might be important. Mere right (so far as such a thing could be given by prior treaties) was not of much moment; but right and Ruston together might be formidable. Now the Baron (and his friends were friends much in the way,mutatis mutandis, that Mr. Wagg and Mr. Wenham were friends of the Marquis of Steyne, and may therefore drop out of consideration) was old and rich, and, by consequence, at a great disadvantage with a man who was young and poor.
"I don't see the bearing of that," he observed, having paused for a moment to consider all its bearings.
"It means that you can't have Omofaga," said Willie Ruston. "You were too late, you see."
The Baron smoked and drank and laughed.
"You're a young fool, my boy—or something quite different," said he, laying a hand on his companion's arm. Then he asked suddenly, "What about Dennisons?"
"They're behind me if——"
"Well?"
"If you're not in front of me."
"But if I am, my son?" asked the Baron, almost caressingly.
"Then I leave for Omofaga by the next boat."
"Eh! And for what?"
"Never mind what. You'll find out when you come."
The Baron sighed and tugged his beard.
"You English!" said he. "Your Government won't help you."
"Damn my Government."
"You English!" said the Baron again, his tone struggling between admiration and a sort of oppression, while his face wore the look a man has who sees another push in front of him in a crowd, and wonders how the fellow works his way through.
There was a long pause. Ruston lit his pipe, and, crossing his arms on his breast, blinked at the sun; the Baron puffed away, shooting a glance now and then at his young friend, then he asked,
"Well, my boy, what do you offer?"
"Shares," answered Ruston composedly.
The Baron laughed. The impudence of the offer pleased him.
"Yes, shares, of course. And besides?"
Willie Ruston turned to him.
"I shan't haggle," he announced. "I'll make you one offer, Baron, and it's an uncommon handsome offer for a trunk of waste paper."
"What's the offer?" asked the Baron, smiling with rich subdued mirth.
"Fifty thousand down, and the same in shares fully paid."
"Not enough, my son."
"All right," and Mr. Ruston rose. "Much obliged for your hospitality, Baron," he added, holding out his hand.
"Where are you going?" asked the Baron.
"Omofaga—viâLondon."
The Baron caught him by the arm, and whispered in his ear,
"There's not so much in it, first and last."
"Oh, isn't there? Then why don't you take the offer?"
"Is it your money?"
"It's good money. Come, Baron, you've always liked the safe side," and Willie smiled down upon his host.
The Baron positively started. This young man stood over him and told him calmly, face-to-face, the secret of his life. It was true. How he had envied men of real nerve, of faith, of daring! But he had always liked the safe side. Hence he was very rich—and a rather weary old man.
Two days later, Willie Ruston took a cab from Lord Semingham's, and drove to Curzon Street. He arrived at twelve o'clock in the morning. Harry Dennisonhad gone to a Committee at the House. The butler had just told him so, when a voice cried from within,
"Is it you, Mr. Ruston?"
Mrs. Dennison was standing in the hall. He went in, and followed her into the library.
"Well?" she asked, standing by the table, and wasting no time in formal greetings.
"Oh, it's all right," said he.
"You got my telegram?"
"Your telegram, Mrs. Dennison?" said he with a smile.
"I mean—the telegram," she corrected herself, smiling in her turn.
"Oh, yes," said Ruston, and he took a step towards her. "I've seen Lord Semingham," he added.
"Yes? And these horrid Germans are out of the way?"
"Yes; and Semingham is letting his shooting this year."
She laughed, and glanced at him as she asked,
"Then it cost a great deal?"
"Fifty thousand!"
"Oh, then we can't take Lord Semingham's shooting, or anybody else's. Poor Harry!"
"He doesn't know yet?"
"Aren't you almost afraid to tell him, Mr. Ruston?"
"Aren't you, Mrs. Dennison?"
He smiled as he asked, and Mrs. Dennison lifted her eyes to his, and let them dwell there.
"Why did you do it?" he asked.
"Will the money be lost?"
"Oh, I hope not; but money's always uncertain."
"The thing's not uncertain?"
"No; the thing's certain now."
She sat down with a sigh of satisfaction, and passed her hand over her broad brow.
"Why did you do it?" Ruston repeated; and she laughed nervously.
"I hate going back," she said, twisting her hands in her lap.
He had asked her the question which she had been asking herself without response.
He sat down opposite her, flinging his soft cloth hat—for he had not been home since his arrival in London—on the table.
"What a bad hat!" said Mrs. Dennison, touching it with the end of a forefinger.
"It's done a journey through Omofaga."
"Ah!" she laughed gently. "Dear old hat!"
"Thanks to you, it'll do another soon."
Mrs. Dennison sat up straight in her chair.
"You hope——?" she began.
"To be on my way in six months," he answered in solid satisfaction.
"And for long?"
"It must take time."
"What must?"
"My work there."
She rose and walked to the window, as she had when she was about to send the telegram. Now also she was breathing quickly, and the flush, once so rare on her cheeks, was there again.
"And we," she said in a low voice, looking out of the window, "shall just hear of you once a year?"
"We shall have regular mails in no time," said he. "Once a year, indeed! Once a month, Mrs. Dennison!"
With a curious laugh, she dashed the blind-tassel against the window. It was not for the sake of hearing of her that he wanted the mails. With a sudden impulse she crossed the room and stood opposite him.
"Do you carethat," she asked, snapping her fingers, "for any soul alive? You're delighted to leave us all and go to Omofaga!"
Willie Ruston seemed not to hear; he was mentally organizing the mail service from Omofaga.
"I beg pardon?" he said, after a perceptible pause.
"Oh!" cried Maggie Dennison, and at last her tone caught his attention.
He looked up with a wrinkle of surprise on his brow.
"Why," said he, "I believe you're angry about something. You look just as you did on—on the memorable occasion."
"Uh, we aren't all Carlins!" she exclaimed, carried away by her feelings.
The least she had expected from him was grateful thanks; a homage tinged with admiration was, in truth, no more than her due; if she had been an ugly dull woman, yet she had done him a great service, and she was not an ugly dull woman. But then neither was she Omofaga.
"If everybody was as good a fellow as old Carlin——" began Willie Ruston.
"If everybody was as useful and docile, you mean; as good a tool for you——"
At last it was too plain to be missed.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "What are you pitching into me for, Mrs. Dennison?"
His words were ordinary enough, but at last he was looking at her, and the mails of Omofaga were for a moment forgotten.
"I wish I'd never made them send the wretched telegram," she flashed out passionately. "Much thanks I get!"
"You shall have a statue in the chief street of the chief town of——"
"How dare you! I'm not a girl to be chaffed."
The tears were standing in her eyes, as she threwherself back in a chair. Willie Ruston got up and stood by her.
"You'll be proud of that telegram some day," he said, rather as though he felt bound to pay her a compliment.
"Oh, you think that now?" she said, unconvinced of his sincerity.
"Yes. Though was it very difficult?" he asked with a sudden change of tone most depreciatory of her exploit.
She glanced at him and smiled joyfully. She liked the depreciation better than the compliment.
"Not a bit," she whispered, "for me."
He laughed slightly, and shut his lips close again. He began to understand Mrs. Dennison better.
"Still, though it was easy for you, it was precious valuable to me," he observed.
"And how you hate being obliged to me, don't you?"
He perceived that she understood him a little, but he smiled again as he asked,
"Oh, but what made you do it, you know?"
"You mean you did? Mr. Ruston, I should like to see you at work in Omofaga."
"Oh, a very humdrum business," said he, with a shrug.
"You'll have soldiers?"
"We shall call 'em police," he corrected, smiling.
"Yes; but they keep everybody down, and—and do as you order?"
"If not, I shall ask 'em why."
"And the natives?"
"Civilise 'em."
"You—you'll be governor?"
"Oh, dear, no. Local administrator."
She laughed in his face; and a grim smile from him seemed to justify her.
"I'm glad I sent the telegram," she half-whispered, lying back in the chair and looking up at him. "I shall have had something to do with all that, shan't I? Do you want any more money?"
"Look here," said Willie Ruston, "Omofaga's mine. I'll find you another place, if you like, when I've put this job through."
A luxury of pleasure rippled through her laugh. She darted out her hand and caught his.
"No. I like Omofaga too!" she said, and as she said it, the door suddenly opened, and in walked Tom Loring—that is to say—in Tom Loring was about to walk; but when he saw what he did see, he stood still for a moment, and then, without a single word, either of greeting or apology, he turned his back, walked out again, and shut the door behind him. His entrance and exit were so quick and sudden, that Mrs. Dennison had hardly dropped Willie Ruston's hand beforehe was gone; she had certainly not dropped it before he came.
Willie Ruston sat down squarely in a chair. Mrs. Dennison's hot mood had been suddenly cooled. She would not ask him to go, but she glanced at the hat that had been through Omofaga. He detected her.
"I shall stay ten minutes," he observed.
She understood and nodded assent. Very little was said during the ten minutes. Mrs. Dennison seemed tired; her eyes dropped towards the ground, and she reclined in her chair. Ruston was frowning and thrumming at intervals on the table. But presently his brow cleared and he smiled. Mrs. Dennison saw him from under her drooping lids.
"Well?" she asked in a petulant tone.
"I believe you were going to fight me for Omofaga."
"I don't know what I was doing."
"Is that fellow a fool?"
"He's a much better man than you'll ever be, Mr. Ruston. Really you might go now."
"All right, I will. I'm going down to the city to see your husband and Carlin."
"I'm afraid I've wasted your time."
She spoke with a bitterness which seemed impossible to miss. But he appeared to miss it.
"Oh, not a bit, really," he assured her anxiously. "Good-bye," he added, holding out his hand.
"Good-bye. I've shaken hands once."
He waited a moment to see if she would speak again, but she said nothing. So he left her.
As he called a hansom, Mrs. Cormack was leaning over her balcony. She took a little jewelled watch out of her pocket and looked at it.
"An hour and a quarter!" she cried. "And I know the poor man isn't at home!"