It was far too risky, and we didn't send back a penny.""It's all pretty risky, I should think," she declared as she rose. "I should think you'd lie awake more than ever now--now that you've built your hopes so high and it'd be so awful to have them come to nothing."He smilingly shook his head. "No, it can no more fail than that gas can fail to burn when you put a light to it.
It's all absolute. My half-million is as right as if it were lying to my credit in the Bank of England.
Oh, that reminds me," he went on in a slightly altered tone--" it's damned comical, but I've got to ask you for a little money. I've only got about seven pounds at my bank, and just at the minute it would give me away fearfully to let Semple know I was hard up.
Of course he'd let me have anything I wanted--but, you can see--I don't like to ask him just at the moment."She hesitated visibly, and scanned his face with a wistful gaze. "You're quite sure, Joel?"--she began--"and you haven't told me--how long will it be before you come into some of this money?""Well,"--he in turn paused over his words--"well, I suppose that by next week things will be in such shape that my bank will see I'm good for an overdraft. Oh heavens, yes! there'll be a hundred ways of touching some ready.
But if you've got twenty or thirty pounds handy just now--Itell you what I'll do, Lou. I'll give you a three months bill, paying one hundred pounds for every sovereign you let me have now. Come, old lady: you don't get such interest every day, I'll bet.""I don't want any interest from you, Joel," she replied, simply. "If you're sure I can have it back before Christmas, I think I can manage thirty pounds.
It will do in the morning, I suppose?"
He nodded an amused affirmative. "Why--you don't imagine, do you," he said, "that all this gold is to rain down, and none of it hit you? Interest? Why of course you'll get interest--and capital thrown in. What did you suppose?""I don't ask anything for myself," she made answer, with a note of resolution in her voice. "Of course if you like to do things for the children, it won't be me who'll stand in their light. They've been spoiled for my kind of life as it is.""I'll do things for everybody," he affirmed roundly.
"Let's see--how old is Alfred?"
"He'll be twenty in May--and Julia is fourteen months older than he is.""Gad!" was Thorpe's meditative comment. "How they shoot up! Why I was thinking she was a little girl." "She never will be tall, I'm afraid," said the literal mother.
"She favours her father's family. But Alfred is more of a Thorpe. I'm sorry you missed seeing them last summer--but of course they didn't stop long with me.
This was no place for them--and they had a good many invitations to visit schoolfellows and friends in the country.
Alfred reminds me very much of what you were at his age: he's got the same good opinion of himself, too--and he's not a bit fonder of hard work.""There's one mighty big difference between us, though,"remarked Thorpe. "He won't start with his nose held down to the grindstone by an old father hard as nails.
He'll start like a gentleman--the nephew of a rich man.""I'm almost afraid to have such notions put in his head,"she replied, with visible apprehension. "You mustn't encourage him to build too high hopes, Joel. It's speculation, you know--and anything might happen to you. And then--you may marry, and have sons of your own."He lifted his brows swiftly--as if the thought were new to his mind. A slow smile stole into the little wrinkles about his eyes. He opened his lips as if to speak, and then closed them again.
"Well," he said at last, abruptly straightening himself, and casting an eye about for his coat and hat.
"I'll be round in the morning--on my way to the City.
Good-bye till then."
