The Marquis devoted the remainder of that afternoon, as he did most others, to paying a call. Very soon indeed after David Thain's departure, he left the house, stepped into the motor-car which was waiting for him, and, with a little nod to the chauffeur which indicated his indulgence in a customary enterprise, drove off towards Battersea. Here he descended before a large block of flats overlooking the gardens, stepped into the lift and, without any direction to the porter, was let out upon the sixth floor. He made his way along the corridor to a little mahogany front door, on which was a brass plate inscribed with the name ofMiss Marcia Hannaway. He rang the bell and was at once admitted by a very trim parlourmaid, who took his hat and cane, and ushered him into a remarkably pleasant little sitting room. A woman, seated before a typewriter, held out two ink-stained hands towards him with a little laugh.
"I've been putting a ribbon in," she confessed. "Did you ever see such a mess! Please make yourself comfortable while I go and wash."
The Marquis glanced with a slight frown at the machine, and, taking her wrists, stooped down and kissed them lightly.
"My dear Marcia," he expostulated, "is this necessary!"
She shook her head with a droll smile.
"Perhaps if it were," she confessed, "I should hate to do it. There's aNineteenth Centuryon the sofa. You can read my article."
She hurried out of the room, from which she was absent only a very few moments. The Marquis, with a finger between the pages of the review which he had been reading, looked up as she re-entered. She was a woman of nameless gifts, of pleasant if not unduly slim figure. Her forehead was perhaps a little low, her eyes brilliant and intelligent, her mouth large and exceedingly mobile. She was not above the allurements of dress, for her house gown, with its long tunic trimmed with light fur, was of fashionable cut and becoming. Her fingers, cleansed now from the violet stains, were shapely, almost elegant. She threw herself into an easy chair opposite her visitor, and reached out her hand for a cigarette.
"Well," she asked, "and how has the great trial ended?"
"Adversely," the Marquis confessed.
"You foolish person," she sighed, lighting the cigarette and throwing the match away. "Of course you were bound to lose, and I suppose it's cost you no end of money."
"I believe," he admitted, a little stiffly, "that my lawyers are somewhat depressed at the amount."
She smoked in silence for a moment.
"So he will go back to Mandeleys. It is a queer little fragment of life. What on earth does he want to do it for?"
"Obstinacy," the Marquis declared,—"sheer, brutal, ignorant obstinacy."
"And the boy?" she asked, pursuing her own train of thought. "Have you heard anything of him?"
"Nothing. To tell you the truth, I have made no enquiries. Beyond the fact that it seems as though, for the present, Richard Vont will have his way, I take no interest in either of them."
She nodded thoughtfully.
"If only we others," she sighed, "could infuse into our lives something of the marvellous persistence of these people whom in other respects we have left so far behind!"
"My dear Marcia," he protested, "surely, with your remarkable intelligence, you can see that such persistence is merely a form of narrow-mindedness. Your father has shut in his life and driven it along one narrow groove. To you every day brings its fresh sensation, its fresh object. Hence—coupled, of course, with your natural gifts—your success. The person who thinks of but one thing in life must be indeed a dull dog."
"Very excellent reasoning," she admitted. "Still, to come back to this little tragedy—for it is a tragedy, isn't it?—have you any idea what he means to do when he gets to Mandeleys?"
"None at all!"
"Let me see," she went on, "it is nineteen years ago last September, isn't it?—nineteen years out of the middle of his life. Will he sit in the garden and brood, I wonder, or has he brought back with him some scheme of mediaeval revenge?"
"There was a time," the Marquis reflected, "when several of my Irish tenants used to shoot at me every Saturday night from behind a hedge. It was not in the least a dangerous operation, and I presume it brought them some relief. With Vont, however, things would be different. I remember him distinctly as a most wonderful shot."
"Psychologically," Marcia Hannaway observed, "his present action is interesting. If he had shot you or me in his first fit of passionate resentment, everything would have been in order, but to leave the country, nurse a sullen feeling of revenge for years, and then come back, seems curious. What shall you do when you see him sitting in his garden?"
"I shall address him," the Marquis replied. "I fear that his long residence in such a country as America will have altered him considerably, but it is of course possible that the instincts of his class remain."
"How feudal you are!" she laughed.
The Marquis frowned slightly. Although this was the one person in the world whom he felt was necessary to him, who held a distinct place in his very inaccessible heart, there were times when he entertained a dim suspicion that she was making fun of him. At such times he was very angry indeed.
"In any case," he said, "we will not waste our time in speculating upon this man's attitude. I am still hoping that I may be able to devise means to render his occupancy of the cottage impossible."
"I should like to hear about the boy."
"If," the Marquis promised, "I find Vont's attitude respectful, I will make enquiries."
"When are you going to Mandeleys?" she asked.
"I am in no hurry to leave London," he replied.
"When you go," she told him, "I have made up my mind to take a little holiday. I thought even of going to the South of France."
The lines of her companion's forehead were slightly elevated.
"My dear Marcia," he protested gently, "is that like you? The class of people who frequent the Riviera at this time of the year—"
She laughed at him delightfully.
"Oh, you foolish person!" she interrupted. "If I go, I shall go to a tiny little boarding house, or take a villa in one of the quiet places—San Raphael, perhaps, or one of those little forgotten spots between Hyères and Cannes. Phillis Grant would go with me. She isn't going to act again until the autumn season."
Her visitor's expression was a little blank.
"In the case of your departure from London," he announced, in a very even but very forlorn tone, "I will instruct Mr. Wadham to make a suitable addition to your allowance. At the same time, Marcia," he added, "I shall miss you."
His words were evidently a surprise to her. She threw away her cigarette and came and sat on the sofa by his side.
"Do you know, I believe you would," she murmured, resting her hand upon his. "How queer!"
"I have never concealed my affection for you, have I?" he asked.
This time the laugh which broke from her lips was scarcely natural.
"Concealed your affection, Reginald!" she repeated. "How strangely that sounds! But listen. You said something just now about my allowance. If I allude to it in return, will you believe that it is entirely for your sake?"
"Of course!"
She rose from her chair and, crossing the room, rummaged about her desk for a moment, produced a letter, and brought it to him. The Marquis adjusted his horn-rimmed eyeglass and read:
Dear Madam:
We feel that some explanation is due to you with regard to the non-payment for the last two quarters of your allowance from our client, the Marquis of Mandeleys. We have to inform you that for some time past we have had no funds in our possession to pay this allowance. We informed his lordship of the fact, some time back, but in our opinion his lordship scarcely took the circumstance seriously. We think it better, therefore, that you should communicate with him on the subject.
Faithfully yours,WADHAM, SON AND DICKSON.
The Marquis deliberately folded up the letter, placed his eyeglass in his pocket, and sat looking into the fire. There was very little change in his face. Only Marcia, to whom he had been the study of a lifetime, knew that so far as suffering was possible to him, he was suffering at that moment.
"You mustn't think it matters," she said gently. "You know my last novel was quite a wonderful success, and for that article in theNineteenthyou were looking at, they gave me twenty guineas. I am really almost opulent. Still, I thought it was better for you to know this. The same thing might refer to other and more important matters, and you know, dear, you are rather inclined to walk with your head in the air where money matters are concerned."
"You have been very considerate, but foolishly so, my dear Marcia," he declared. "This matter must be put right at once. I fear that a younger element has obtruded itself into the firm of Wadham, an element which scarcely grasps the true position. I will see these people, Marcia."
"You are not to worry about it," she begged softly. "To tell you the truth—"
Marcia was a brave woman, and the moment had come up to which she had been leading for so long, which for many months, even years, had been in her mind. And when it came she faltered. There was something in the superb, immutable poise of the man who bent a little courteously towards her, which checked the words upon her lips.
"It will be no trouble to me, Marcia, to set this little affair right," he assured her. "I am only glad that your circumstances have been such that you have not been inconvenienced. At the same time, is it entirely necessary for you to manipulate that hideous machine yourself?" he enquired, inclining his head towards the typewriter.
"There are times," she confessed, "when I find it better. Of course, I send a great deal of my work out to be typed, but my correspondence grows, and my friends find my handwriting illegible."
"I have never found it difficult," he remarked.
"Well, you've had a good many years to get used to it," she reminded him.
His hand rested for a moment upon her shoulder. He drew her a little towards him. She suddenly laughed, leaned over and kissed him on both cheeks, and jumped up. The trim little parlourmaid was at the door with tea.
"Yes," she went on, "you have learned to read my handwriting, and I have learned how you like your tea. Just one or two more little things like that, and life is made between two people, isn't it? Shall I tell you what I think the most singular thing in the world?" she went on, pausing for a moment in her task. "It is fidelity to purpose—and to people, too, perhaps. In a way there is a quaint sort of distinction about it, and from another point of view it is most horribly constraining."
"I interrupted you this afternoon, I imagine," he observed, "in the construction of some work of fiction."
"Oh, no!" she replied. "What I write isn't fiction. That's why it sells. It's truth, you see, under another garb. But there the fact remains—that I shouldn't know how to make tea for another man in the world, and you wouldn't be able to read the letters of any other woman who wrote as badly as I do."
"The fact," he remarked, "seems to me to be a cause for mutual congratulation."
She stooped down to place a dish of muffins on a heater near the fire, graceful yet as a girl, and as brisk.
"I can't imagine," she declared, "why it is that my sex has acquired the reputation for fidelity. I am sure we crave for experience much more than men."
The Marquis helped himself to a muffin and considered the point. There were many times when Marcia's conversation troubled him. He was by no means an ill-read or unintellectual man, only his studies of literature had been confined to its polished and classical side, the side which deals so much with living and so little with life.
"Are you preparing for a new work of fiction, Marcia," he asked, "or are you developing a fresh standpoint?"
"Dear friend," she declared, lightly and yet with an undernote of earnestness, "how can I tell? I never know what I am going to do in the way of work. I wish I could say the same about life. Now I am going to ask you a great favour. I have to attend a small meeting at my club, at the other end of Piccadilly, at half-past five. Would you take me there?"
"I shall be delighted," he answered, a little stiffly.
She went presently to put on her outdoor clothes. The Marquis was disappointed. He realised how much he had looked forward to that quiet twilight hour, when somehow or other his vanity felt soothed, and that queer weariness which came over him sometimes was banished. He escorted Marcia to the car when she reappeared, however, without complaint.
"I see your name in the papers sometimes, Marcia," he observed as he took his place by her side, "in connection with women's work. Of course, I do not interfere in any way with your energies. I should not, in whatever direction they might chance to lead you. At the same time, I must confess that I have noticed with considerable pleasure that you have never been publicly associated with this movement in favour of Woman's Suffrage."
She nodded.
"I should like a vote myself," she admitted simply, "but when I think of the number of other women who would have to have it, and who don't yet look at life seriously at all, I think we are better as we are. Is it my fancy," she went on, a little abruptly, "or are you really troubled about the return of—of Richard Vont?"
"As usual, Marcia," he said, "you show a somewhat extraordinary perception where I am concerned. I am, as you know, not subject to presentiments, and I have no exact apprehension of what the word fear may mean. At the same time, you are right. I do view the return of this man with a feeling which you, as a novelist, might be able to analyse, but which I, as a layman, unused to fresh sentiments, find puzzling. You remember what a famous Frenchman wrote in his memoirs, suddenly, across one blank page of his journal—'To-day I feel that a great change is coming.'"
She smiled reassuringly.
"Personally," she told him, "I believe that it is just the call of England to a man who lived very near the soil—her heart. I think he wants the smell of spring flowers, the stillness of an English autumn, the winds of February in the woods he was brought up in. It is a form of heart-sickness, you know. I have felt it myself so often. It is scarcely possible that after all these years he is still nursing that bitter hatred of us both."
The car had reached the great building in which Marcia's club was situated. The Marquis handed her out.
"I trust that you are right," he remarked. "You will allow me to leave the car for you?"
She shook her head.
"There are so many women here with whom I want to talk," she said. "I may even stay and dine. And would you mind not coming until Wednesday? To-morrow I must work all day at an article which has to be typed and catch the Wednesday's boat for America."
"Exactly as you wish," he assented.
She waved her hand to him and ran lightly up the steps. The Marquis threw himself back in his car and hesitated. The footman was waiting for an address, and his august master was suddenly conscious that the skies were very grey, that a slight rain was falling, and that there was nowhere very much he wanted to go.
The man waited with immovable face.
"To—the club."
Messrs. Wadham, Son and Dickson were not habited in luxury. Theirs was one of those old-fashioned suites of offices in Lincoln's Inn, where the passages are of stone, the doors of painted deal, and a general air of bareness and discomfort prevails. The Marquis, who was a rare visitor, followed the directions of a hand painted upon the wall and found himself in what was termed, an enquiry office. A small boy tore himself away with apparent regret from the study of a pile of documents, and turned a little wearily towards the caller.
"I desire," the Marquis announced, "to see Mr. Wadham, Senior, or to confer at once with any member of the firm who may be disengaged."
The small boy was hugely impressed. He glanced at the long row of black boxes along the wall and a premonition of the truth began to dawn upon him.
"What name, sir?" he enquired.
"The Marquis of Mandeleys."
The office boy swung open a wicket gate and pointed to the hard remains of a horsehair stuffed easy-chair. The Marquis eyed it curiously—and remained standing. His messenger thereupon departed, exhibiting a rare and unlegal haste. He returned breathless, in fact, from his mission, closely followed by Mr. Wadham, Junior.
"This is quite an honour, your lordship," the latter said, hastily withdrawing his hand as he became aware of a certain rigidity in his visitor's demeanour. "My father is disengaged. Let me show you the way to his room."
"I should be obliged," the Marquis assented.
Mr. Wadham, Senior, was an excellent replica of his son, a little fatter, a little rosier and a little more verbose. He rose from behind his desk and bowed twice as his distinguished client entered. The Marquis indicated to Mr. Wadham, Junior, the chair upon which he proposed to sit, and waited while it was wheeled up to the side of the desk. Then he withdrew his gloves in leisurely fashion and extended his hand to the older man, who clasped it reverently.
"Your lordship pays us a rare honour," Mr. Wadham, Senior, observed.
"I should have preferred," the Marquis said, with some emphasis, "that circumstances had not rendered my visit to-day necessary."
The head of the firm nodded sympathetically.
"You will bear in mind," he begged, "our advice concerning these recent actions."
"Your advice was, without doubt, legally good," his visitor replied, "but it scarcely took into account circumstances outside the legal point of view. However, I am not here to discuss those actions, which I understand are now finally disposed of."
"Quite finally, I fear, your lordship."
"I find myself," the Marquis continued sternly, "in the painful position of having to prefer a complaint against your firm."
"I am very sorry—very sorry indeed," Mr. Wadham murmured.
"I discovered yesterday afternoon, entirely by accident, that the allowance which you have my instructions to make to Miss Hannaway has not been paid for the last two quarters."
"Through no neglect of ours, I assure your lordship," Mr. Wadham insisted gravely. "You will remember that we wrote to you last October, pointing out that the yield from the estates was insufficient, without the help of the bank, to meet the interest on the mortgages, and that, amongst other claims which we were obliged to leave over, we should be unable to forward the usual cheque to the young lady in question."
The Marquis cleared his throat and tapped with his long forefingers upon the desk. It was a curious circumstance that, although both Mr. Wadham, Senior, and Junior had done more than their duty towards their distinguished client, each had at that moment the feeling of a criminal.
"You are, I believe, perfectly well aware, Mr. Wadham," the Marquis declared, "that I never read your letters."
Mr. Wadham, Senior, coughed. His son thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. The statement was unanswerable.
"I was therefore," the Marquis continued severely, "in complete ignorance of your failure to carry out my instructions."
Mr. Wadham, Junior, less affected than his father by tradition, and priding himself more upon that negligible gift of common sense, interposed respectfully but firmly.
"We can scarcely be responsible," he pointed out, "for your lordship's indisposition to read letters containing business information of importance."
The Marquis changed his position slightly and looked at the speaker. Mr. Wadham, Junior, became during the next few seconds profoundly impressed with the irrelevance, almost the impertinence of his words.
"I should have imagined," the former said severely, "that my habits are well-known to the members of a firm whose connection with my family is almost historical."
"We should have waited upon your lordship," Mr. Wadham, Senior, admitted. "But with reference to the case of this young lady, not hearing from your lordship, we wrote to her, very politely, indicating the great difficulties which we had to face in the management of the Mandeleys estates, owing to the abnormal agricultural depression, and we promised to send her a cheque as soon as such a step became possible. In reply we heard from her—a most ladylike and reasonable letter it was—stating that owing to recent literary successes, and to your lordship's generosity through so many years, she was only too glad of the opportunity to beg us to cease from forwarding the quarterly amount as hitherto. Under those circumstances, we have devoted such small sums of money as have come into our hands to more vital purposes."
"I suppose it did not occur to you," the Marquis observed, "that I am the person to decide what is or is not vital in the disposition of my own moneys."
"That is a fact which we should not presume to dispute," the lawyer admitted, "but I should like to point out that, on the next occasion when we had a little money in hand, your household steward, Mr. Harrison, was here in urgent need of a thousand pounds for the payment of domestic bills connected with the establishment in Grosvenor Square."
"It appears to me," the Marquis said, with a trace of irritability in his tone, "that the greater part of my income goes in paying bills."
The complaint was one which for the moment left Mr. Wadham speechless. He was vaguely conscious that an adequate reply existed, but it eluded him. His son, who had adopted the attitude of being outside the discussion, was engaged in an abortive attempt to appear as much at ease in his own office as this client of theirs certainly was.
"I will discuss the matter of Miss Hannaway's future allowance with that young lady, and let you know the result," the Marquis announced. "In the meantime, how do we stand for ready money?"
"Ready money, your lordship!" his interlocutor gasped.
"Precisely," the Marquis assented. "It is, I believe, a few days after the period when my tenants usually pay their rents."
"Your lordship," Mr. Wadham said, speaking with every attempt at gravity, "if every one of your tenants paid their full rent and brought it into this office at the present moment, we should still be unable to pay the interest on the mortgages due next month, without further advances from the bank."
"These mortgages," the Marquis remarked thoughtfully, "are a nuisance."
So self-evident a fact seemed to leave little room for comment or denial. The Marquis frowned a little more severely and withdrew his forefingers from the desk.
"Figures, I fear, only confuse me," he confessed, "but for the sake of curiosity, what do my quarterly rents amount to?"
"Between seven and eight thousand pounds, according to deductions, your lordship," was the prompt reply. "That sum I presume will be coming in from your agent, Mr. Merridrew, within the course of a few days. The interest upon the mortgages amounts to perhaps a thousand pounds less than that sum. That thousand pounds, I may be permitted to point out to your lordship, is all that remains for the carrying on of your Grosvenor Square establishment, and for such disbursements as are necessary at Mandeleys."
"It is shameful," the Marquis declared severely, "that any one should be allowed to anticipate their income in this way. Mortgages are most vicious institutions."
Mr. Wadham coughed.
"Your lordship's expenditure, some ten or fifteen years ago, rendered them first necessary. After that there was the unfortunate speculation in the tin mines—"
"That will do, Mr. Wadham," his client interrupted. "All I desire to know from you further is a statement of the approximate sum required to clear off the mortgages upon the Mandeleys estates?"
Mr. Wadham, Senior, looked a little startled. His son stopped whistling under his breath and leaned forward in his chair.
"Clear off the mortgages," he repeated.
"Precisely!"
"The exact figures," was the somewhat hesitating pronouncement, "would require a quarter of an hour's study, but I should say that a sum of two hundred and twenty thousand pounds would be required."
"I have not a head for figures," the Marquis acknowledged gravely, "but the amount seems trifling. I shall wish you good-day now, gentlemen. Two hundred and twenty thousand, I think you said, Mr. Wadham?"
"That is as near the amount as possible," the lawyer admitted.
The Marquis drew on his gloves, a sign that he did not intend to honour his adviser with any familiar form of farewell. He inclined his head slightly to Mr. Wadham, and more slightly still to Mr. Wadham, Junior, who was holding open the door. The small boy, who was on the alert, escorted him to the front steps, and received with delight a gracious word of thanks for his attentions. So the Marquis took his departure.
Mr. Wadham, Junior, closed the door and threw himself into the chair which had been occupied by their distinguished client. There was a faint perfume of lavender water remaining in the atmosphere. His eyes wandered around the further rows of tin boxes which encumbered the wall.
"I suppose," he murmured, "it's a great thing to have a Marquis for one's client."
"I suppose it is," Mr. Wadham, Senior, assented gloomily.
"Father, do you ever feel at ease with him?" his son asked curiously. "Do you ever feel as though you were talking to a real human being, of the same flesh and blood as yourself?"
"Never for a single moment," was the vigorous reply. "If I felt like that, John, do you know what I should do? No? Well, then, I'll tell you. I should have those tin boxes taken out, one by one, and stacked in the hall. I should say to him, as plainly as I am saying it to you—'We lose money every year by your business, Marquis. We've had our turn. Try some one else—and go to the Devil!'"
"But you couldn't do it!" Mr. Wadham, Junior, observed disconsolately.
"I couldn't," his father agreed, with a note of subdued melancholy in his tone.
Lady Margaret, who chanced to be the first arrival on the night of the dinner party in David Thain's honour, contemplated her sister admiringly. Letitia was wearing a gown of ivory satin, a form of attire which seemed always to bring with it almost startling reminiscences of her Italian ancestry.
"So glad to find you alone, Letty," she remarked, as she sank into the most comfortable of the easy chairs. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you for weeks. Bob put it into my head again this afternoon."
"What is it, dear?" Letitia enquired.
"Why don't you marry Charlie Grantham?" her sister demanded abruptly.
"There are so many reasons. First of all, he hasn't really ever asked me."
"You're simply indolent," Lady Margaret persisted. "He'd ask you in five minutes if you'd let him. Do you suppose Bob would ever have thought of marrying me, if I hadn't put the idea into his head?"
"You're so much cleverer than I," Letitia sighed.
"Not in the least," was the prompt disclaimer. "I really doubt whether I have your brains, and I certainly haven't your taste. The only thing that I have, and always had, is common sense, common sense enough to see that girls in our position in life must marry, and the sooner the better."
"Why only our class of life?"
"Don't be silly! It's perfectly obvious, isn't it, that the daughters of the middle classes are having the time of their lives. They are all earning money. Amongst them it has become quite the vogue to take situations as secretaries or milliners or that sort of thing, and it simply doesn't matter whether they marry or not. They get all the fun they want out of life."
"It sounds quite attractive," Letitia admitted. "I think I shall take a course in typewriting and shorthand."
"You won't," Margaret rejoined. "You know perfectly well that that is one of the things we can never do. You've got to marry first. Then you can branch out in life in any direction you choose—art, travel, amours, or millinery. You can help yourself with both hands."
"Which have you chosen, Meg?"
"Oh, I am an exception!" Margaret confessed. "You see, Bob is such fun, and I've never got over the joke of marrying him. Besides, I haven't any craving for things at all. I am not temperamental like you. Where's father?"
"Just back from the country. He'll be here in time, though."
"And who's dining?"
"Charlie, for one," Letitia replied, "Aunt Caroline, of course, and Uncle, Mrs. Honeywell, and the American person. The party was got up on his account, so I expect father wants to borrow money from him."
"He doesn't look an easy lender," Lady Margaret remarked.
"There's no one proof against father," Letitia declared. "He is too exquisitely and transparently dishonest. You know, there's a man's story about the clubs that he once borrowed money from Lewis at five per cent. interest."
Margaret remained in a serious frame of mind.
"Something will have to be done," she sighed. "Robert went down and looked at the mortgages, the other day. He says they are simply appalling, there isn't an acre missed out. It's quite on the cards, you know, Letty, that Mandeleys may have to go."
Letitia made a little grimace.
"I am getting perfectly callous," she confided. "If it did, this house would probably follow, father would realise everything he could lay his hands upon and become the autocrat of some French watering place, and I should cease to be the honest but impecunious daughter of a wicked nobleman, and enjoy the liberty of the middle-class young women you were telling me about. It wouldn't be so bad!"
"Or marry—" Margaret began.
"Mr. David Thain," the butler announced.
The juxtaposition of words perhaps incited in Letitia a greater interest as she turned away from her sister to welcome the first of her guests. He had to cross a considerable space of the drawing-room, with its old-fashioned conglomeration of furniture untouched and unrenovated for the last two generations, but he showed not the slightest sign of awkwardness or self-consciousness in any form. He was slight and none too powerfully built, but his body was singularly erect, and he moved with the alert dignity of a man in perfect health and used to gymnastic training. His clean-shaven face disclosed nervous lines which his manner contradicted. His mouth was unexpectedly hard, his deep-set grey eyes steel-like, almost brilliant. These things made for a strength which had in it, however, nothing of the uncouth. The only singularity about his face and manner, as he took his hostess' fingers, was the absence of any smile of greeting upon his lips.
"I am afraid that I am a little early," he apologised.
"We are all the more grateful to you," Lady Margaret assured him. "Letitia and I always bore one another terribly. A married sister, you know, feels rather like the cuckoo returning to the discarded nest."
"One hates other people's liberty so much," Letitia sighed.
"I should have thought liberty was a state very easy to acquire," David Thain observed didactically.
"That is because you come from a land where all the women are clever and the men tolerant," Letitia replied. "Where is that husband of yours, Margaret?"
"I am ashamed to say," her sister confessed, "that he stayed down in the morning room while Gossett fetched him a glass of sherry. Look at him now," she added, as Sir Robert entered the room unannounced and came smiling towards them. "How can I have any faith in a husband like that. Doesn't he look as though the only thing that could trouble him in life was that he hadn't been able to get here a few minutes earlier!"
"Given away, eh?" the newcomer groaned, as he kissed Letitia's fingers. "How are you, Mr. Thain? Your country is entirely to blame for my habits. I got so into the habit of drinking cocktails while I was over there that I really prefer my aperitif to my wine at dinner."
Sir Robert, who had discovered within the last few days exactly where Mr. David Thain stood amongst the list of American multi-millionaires, drew this very distinguished person a little on one side to ask about a railway. Then the Marquis made his appearance, and immediately afterwards the remaining guests. David Thain, of whom many of the morning papers, during the last few days, had found something to say, found himself almost insinuated into the position of favoured guest. He took Mrs. Honeywell—a dark and rather tired-looking lady—in to dinner, but he sat at Letitia's left hand, and she gave him a good deal of her attention.
"You know everybody, don't you, Mr. Thain?" she asked him, soon after they had taken their places.
"Except the gentleman on your right," he answered.
She leaned towards him confidentially.
"His name," she whispered, "is Lord Charles Grantham. He is the son of the Duke of Leicester, who is, between ourselves, almost as wicked a duke as my father is a marquis. Fortunately, however, his mother left him a fortune. Do you notice how thoughtful he looks?"
David Thain glanced across the table at the young man in question, who was exchanging rather weary monosyllables with his right-hand neighbour.
"He is perhaps overworked?"
Letitia shook her head.
"Not at all. He cannot make up his mind whether or not he wants to marry me."
"And can you make up your mind whether you wish to marry him?"
Letitia lost for a moment her air of gentle banter.
"What a downright question!" she observed. "However, I can't tell you before I answer him, can I, and he hasn't asked me yet."
"I should think," David Thain said coolly, "that you would make an excellent match."
Their eyes met for a moment. There was a challenging light in hers to which he instantly responded. Her very beautiful white teeth closed for a moment upon her lower lip. Then she smiled upon him once more.
"It is so reassuring," she murmured, "to be told things like that by people who are likely to know. Charles, talk to me at once," she went on, turning towards him. "Mr. Thain and I agree far too perfectly upon everything."
Thain was deep in conversation with his neighbour before Lord Charles was able to disentangle himself from the conversational artifices of the Duchess. Letitia took note of his aptness with a little, malicious smile. It was towards the close of dinner when she once more turned towards him.
"Have you been telling Mrs. Honeywell how you made all your millions?" she asked.
"I have been trying to point out," he replied, "that the first million is all one has to make. The rest comes."
"What a delightful country!" Letitia observed. "If I were to borrow from all my friends and collected a million, do you think I could go out there and become a multi-millionaire?"
"Women are not natural money-makers," he pronounced.
"What is her real sphere?" she asked sweetly. "I should so much like to know your opinion of us."
"As yet," he replied, "I have had no time to form one."
"What a pity!" she sighed. "It would have been so instructive."
"In the small amenities of daily life," he said thoughtfully, "in what one of our writers calls the insignificant arts, women seem inevitably to excel. They always appear to do better, in fact, in the narrower circles. Directly they step outside, a certain lack of breadth becomes noticeable."
"Dear me!" she murmured. "It's a good thing I'm not one of these modern ladies who stand on a tub in Hyde Park and thump the drum for votes. I should be saying quite disagreeable things to you, Mr. Thain, shouldn't I?"
"You couldn't be one of those, if you tried," he replied. "You see, if I may be permitted to say so, nature has endowed you with rather a rare gift so far as your sex is concerned."
"Don't be over-diffident," she begged. "I may know it, mayn't I?"
"A sense of humour."
"When a man tells a woman that she has a sense of humour," Letitia declared, "it is a sure sign that he—"
She suddenly realised how intensely observant those steely grey eyes could be. She broke off in her sentence. They still held her, however.
"That he what?"
"Such a bad habit of mine," she confided frankly. "I so often begin a sentence and have no idea how to finish it. Ada," she went on, addressing Mrs. Honeywell, "has Mr. Thain taught you how to become a millionairess?"
"I haven't even tried to learn," that lady replied. "He has promised me a subscription to my Cripples' Guild, though."
"What extraordinary bad taste," Letitia remarked, "to cadge from him at dinner time!"
"If your father weren't within hearing," Mrs. Honeywell retorted, "I'd let you know what I think of you as a hostess! Why are we all so frightened of your father, Letitia? Look at him now. He is the most picturesque and kindly object you can imagine, yet I find myself always choosing my phrases, and slipping into a sort of pre-Victorian English, when I fancy that he is listening."
"I see him more from the family point of view, I suppose," Letitia observed, "and yet, in a way, he is rather a wonderful person. For instance, I have never seen him hurry, I have never seen him angry, in the ordinary sense of the word; in fact he has the most amazing complacency I ever knew. Of course, Aunt Caroline," she went on, turning to the Duchess a few moments later, "if you want to stay with the men, pray do so. If not, you might take into account the fact that I have been trying to catch your eye for the last three minutes."
Thain drew up nearer to his host after the women had withdrawn, and found himself next Sir Robert, who talked railways with eloquence and some understanding. Lord Charles was frankly bored, and bestowed his whole attention upon the port. The Marquis discussed a recent land bill with his brother-in-law, but in a very few moments gave the signal to rise. He attached himself at once to David Thain.
"You play bridge?" he asked.
"Never if I can avoid it," was the frank reply.
"Then you and I will entertain one another," his host suggested.
The Marquis's idea of entertainment was to install his guest in a comfortable chair in a small den at the back of the house, which he kept for his absolutely private use, and to broach the subject which had led to David's welcome at Grosvenor Square.
"Let me ask you," he began, "have you seen anything more of this man Vont?"
"Nothing."
The Marquis looked ruminatively at the cedar spill with which he had just lit his cigarette.
"I am almost certain," he said, "that I saw him on the platform at Raynham—the nearest station to Mandeleys—yesterday. He seemed marvellously little altered."
"He has probably taken up his abode down there, then," David observed.
The Marquis's face darkened. He brushed the subject aside.
"There is a matter concerning which I wish to speak to you, Mr. Thain," he said. "You are one of the fortunate ones of the earth, who have attained, by your own efforts, I believe, an immense prosperity."
David listened in silence, watching the ash at the end of his cigar.
"Your money, my son-in-law, Sir Robert, tells me," the Marquis continued, "has been made in brilliant and sagacious speculation. There have no doubt been others who have followed in your footsteps, and, in a humbler way, have shared your success."
David had developed a rare gift of silence. He smoked steadily, and his expression was remarkably stolid.
"I find myself in need of a sum," the Marquis proceeded, with the air of a man introducing a business proposition, "of two hundred and twenty thousand pounds—there or thereabouts."
There was a momentary gleam of interest in David's eyes, gone, however, almost as soon as it had appeared. For the first time he made a remark.
"Over a million dollars, eh?"
The Marquis inclined his head.
"My position," he continued, "naturally precludes me from making use of any of the ordinary methods by means of which men amass wealth. I have at various times, however, made small but not entirely unsuccessful speculations—upon the Stock Exchange. The position in which I now find myself demands something upon a larger scale."
"What capital," David Thain enquired, "can you handle?"
The Marquis stroked his chin thoughtfully. He was aware of a pocketbook a shade fuller than usual, of three overdrawn banking accounts, and his recent interview with his lawyers.
"Capital," he repeated. "Ah! I suppose capital is necessary."
"In any gambling transaction, you always have to take into account the possibility," David reminded him, "that you might lose."
"Precisely," the Marquis assented, selecting another cigarette, "but that is not the class of speculation I am looking for. I am anxious to discover an enterprise, either by means of my own insight into such matters, which is not inconsiderable, or the good offices of a friend, in which the chances of loss do not exist."
David was a little staggered. He contemplated his host curiously.
"Such speculations," he said at last, "are difficult to find."
"Not to a man of your ability, I am sure, Mr. Thain," the Marquis asserted.
"Do I gather that you wish for my advice?"
The Marquis inclined his head.
"That," he intimated, "was my object."
David smoked steadily, and his host contemplated him with a certain artistic satisfaction. He had been something of a sculptor in his youth, and he saw possibilities in the shape and pose of the great financier.
"The long and short of it is," David said at last, "that you want to make a million dollars, without any trouble, and without any chance of loss. There are a good many others, Marquis."
"But they have not all the privilege," was the graceful rejoinder, "of knowing personally a Goliath of finance. You will pardon the allegory. I take it from this morning'sDaily Express."
"In my career," David continued, after a moment's pause, "you would perhaps be surprised to hear that I have done very little speculating. I have made great purchases of railways, and land through which railways must run, because I knew my job and because I had insight. The time for that is past now. To make money rapidly one must, as you yourself have already decided, speculate. I can tell you of a speculation in which I have myself indulged, but I do not for a moment pretend that it is a certainty. It was good enough for me to put in two million dollars, and if what I believe happens, my two millions will be forty millions. But there is no certainty."
The Marquis fidgeted in his chair.
"By what means," he asked tentatively, "could I interest myself in this undertaking?"
"By the purchase of shares," was the prompt reply.
The Marquis considered the point. The matter of purchasing anything presented fundamental difficulties to him!
"Tell me about these shares?" he invited. "What is the nature of the undertaking?"
"Oil."
The Marquis grew a little more sanguine. There was an element of fantasy about oil shares. Perhaps they could be bought on paper.
"Large fortunes have been made in oil," he said. "Personally, I am a believer in oil. Where are the wells?"
"In Arizona."
"An excellent locality," the Marquis continued approvingly. "What is the present price of the shares?"
"They are dollar shares," David replied, "and their present price is par. You may find them quoted in some financial papers, but as practically the entire holding is in my possession, the market for them is limited."
"Precisely," the Marquis murmured. "To come to business, Mr. Thain, are you disposed to part with any?"
David appeared to consider the matter.
"Well, I don't know," he said, "I've made something like twenty million dollars out of my railways, and I have about reached that point when speculations cease to attract."
The Marquis held on to the sides of his chair and struggled against the feeling almost of reverence which he feared might be reflected in his countenance.
"A very desirable sum of money, Mr. Thain," he conceded.
"It's enough for me," David acknowledged. "There are two million shares in the Pluto Oil Company, practically the whole of which stand in my name. If the calculations which the most experienced oil men in the States have worked out materialise, those shares will be worth ten million dollars in four months' time. Let me see," he went on, "two hundred and thirty thousand pounds is, roughly speaking, one million, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You can have two hundred thousand of my shares, if you like, at a dollar."
"This is exceedingly kind of you," the Marquis declared. "Let me see," he reflected, "two hundred thousand dollars would be—"
"A matter of forty thousand pounds."
"I see!" the Marquis ruminated. "Forty thousand pounds!"
"You are not, I am sure, a business man," his guest continued, "so you will pardon my reminding you that you can easily obtain an advance from your bankers upon the title deeds of property, or a short mortgage would produce the amount."
"A mortgage," the Marquis repeated, as though the idea were a new one to him. "Ah, yes! I must confess, though, that I have the strongest possible objection to mortgages, if they can in any way be dispensed with."
"I suppose that is how you large English landowners generally feel," David remarked tolerantly. "If you would prefer it, I will take your note of hand for the amount of the shares, payable, say, in three months' time."
The Marquis upset the box of cigarettes which he was handling. He was not as a rule a clumsy person, but he felt strongly the need of some extraneous incident. He stood on the hearthrug whilst the servant whom he summoned collected the cigarettes and replaced them in the box. As soon as the door was closed, he turned to his guest.
"Your offer, Mr. Thain," he said, "is a most kindly one. It simplifies the whole matter exceedingly."
"You had better make the usual enquiries concerning the property," the latter advised. "I am afraid you will find it a little difficult over on this side to get exact information, but if you have any friends who understand oil prospecting—"
The Marquis held out his hand.
"It is not an occasion upon which a further opinion is necessary," he declared. "I approve of the locality of the property, and the fact that you yourself are largely interested is sufficient for me."
"Then any time you like to meet me at your lawyer's," David suggested, "I'll hand over the shares and you can sign a note of hand for the amount."
The Marquis considered the matter for a moment, thoughtfully. There was something about the idea of letting Mr. Wadham see him sign a promissory note for forty thousand pounds which occurred to him as somewhat precarious.
"Perhaps you have legal connections of your own here," he ventured. "To tell you the truth, I have been obliged to speak my mind in a very plain manner to my own solicitors. I consider that they mismanaged the Vont case most shamefully. I would really prefer to keep away from them for a time."
David nodded.
"I have a letter to some lawyers, at my rooms," he said. "I will send you their address, and we can make an appointment to meet at their office."
The Marquis assented gravely. He considered that the matter was now better dismissed from further discussion.
"I have no doubt," he said, "that my sister would like to talk to you for a time. Shall we join the ladies?"
David threw away his cigar and professed his readiness. They crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room. There was one table of bridge, and Letitia was seated with her sister on a divan near the window. The former sighed as she watched the entrance of the two men.
"Do look at father, Meg," she whispered. "I am perfectly certain he has been borrowing money."
Margaret shrugged her shoulders.
"What if he has, my dear!" she rejoined. "These people can afford to pay for their entertainment. I think it's rather clever of him."
Letitia groaned.
"You have such ignoble ideas, Meg," she said reprovingly. "Now I know I shall have to make myself agreeable to Mr. Thain, and I either like him or dislike him immensely. I haven't the least idea which."
"I shouldn't be surprised," her sister whispered, as Thain approached, "if he didn't help you presently to make up your mind."