"But it will be put more appropriately, perhaps, in this way: Let me leave it entirely in your hands. Whatever you do will be right. I know so little of these things--and you know so much."Thorpe put out his lips a trifle, and looked away for an instant in frowning abstraction. "If it were put in that way--I think I should sell," he said.
"It's all right for me to take long chances--it's my game--but there's no reason why you should risk things.
But let me put it in still another way," he added, with the passing gleam of a new thought over the dull surface of his eye. "What do you say to our making the transaction strictly between ourselves? Here are shares to bearer, in the safe there. I say that two thousand of them are yours: that makes them yours.
I give you my cheque for thirty thousand pounds--here, now, if you like--and that makes them mine again.
The business is finished and done with--inside this room.
Neither of us is to say anything about it to a soul.
Does that meet your views?"
The diplomat pondered the proposition--again with a lengthened perturbation of the eyelids. "It would be possible to suggest a variety of objections, if one were of a sophistical turn of mind," he said at last, smilingly reflective.
"Yet I see no really insuperable obstacle in the path."He thought upon it further, and went on with an enquiring upward glance directed suddenly at Thorpe: "Is there likely to be any very unpleasant hubbub in the press--when it is known that the annual meeting has been postponed?"Thorpe shook his head with confidence. "No--you need have no fear of that. The press is all right. It's the talk of the City, I'm told--the way I've managed the press.
It isn't often that a man has all three of the papers walking the same chalk-line."The Marquis considered these remarks with a puzzled air.
Then he smiled faintly. "I'm afraid we're speaking of different things," he suggested. "Apparently you refer to the financial papers. I had scarcely given them a thought.
It does not seem to me that I should mind particularly what they said about me--but I should care a great deal about the other press--the great public press.""Oh, what do they know about these things?" said Thorpe, lightly.
"So far as I can see, they don't know about anything, unless it gets into the police court, or the divorce court, or a court of some kind. They're the funniest sort of papers I ever saw. Seems as if they didn't think anything was safe to be printed until it had been sworn to.
Why anybody should be afraid of them is more than I can see.""Nevertheless," persisted his Lordship, blandly, "I should greatly dislike any public discussion of our Company's affairs.
I hope it is quite clear that that can be avoided.""Absolutely!" Thorpe told him, with reassuring energy.
"Why, discussions don't make themselves. Somebody has to kick before anything gets discussed. And who is to kick here? The public who hold the shares are not likely to complain because they've gone up fifteen hundred or two thousand per cent. And who else has any interest in what the Company, as a Company, does?""Ah, that is a question which has occurred to me," said Lord Chaldon, "and I shall be glad if it is already answered.
The only people likely to 'kick,' as you put it so simply, would be, I take it, Directors and other officers of the Company who find themselves holding a class of shares which does not participate in the present rise. I speak with some confidence--because I was in that position myself until a few minutes ago--and I don't mind confessing that I had brought myself to contemplate the contingency of ultimately being compelled to--to 'kick' a little.
Of course, so far as I am concerned, events have put me in a diametrically different frame of mind. If I came prepared--I won't say to curse, but to--to criticize--Icertainly remain to bless. But you see my point.
I of course do not know what you have done as regards the other members of the Board.""I don't care about them," said Thorpe, carelessly. "You are the one that I wished to bring in on the ground-floor.
The others don't matter. Of course, I shall do something for them; they shan't be allowed to make trouble--even supposing that it would be in their power to make trouble, which isn't the case. But it won't be done by any means on the same scale that--" he paused abruptly, and the two men tacitly completed his sentence in the glance they exchanged.
The Marquis of Chaldon rose, and took up his hat and stick.
"If you will post it to me--in a registered letter--my town house--please," he remarked, with a charmingly delicate hesitation over the phrases. Then he put out his hand: "Ineed not say how fully I appreciate your great kindness to my old friend Fromentin. It was a noble action--one I shall always reflect upon with admiration.""I hope you won't mention it, though," said Thorpe, as they shook hands; "either that or--or anything else.""I shall preserve the most guarded--the most diplomatic secrecy,"his Lordship assured him, as they walked toward the door.
Thorpe opened this door, and stepped aside, with a half bow, to facilitate the exit of the Marquis, who bent gracious acknowledgment of the courtesy. Then, with an abrupt start of surprise, the two men straightened themselves.
Directly in front of them, leaning lightly against the brass-rail which guarded the entrance to the Board Room, stood Lord Plowden.
A certain sense of confusion, unwelcome but inevitable, visibly enveloped this chance meeting. The Marquis blinked very hard as he exchanged a fleeting hand-shake with the younger nobleman, and murmured some indistinguishable commonplaces. Then, with a graceful celerity, which was more than diplomatic, he disappeared. Thorpe, with more difficulty, recovered a sort of stolidity of expression that might pass for composure. He in turn gave his hand to the newcomer, and nodded to him, and achieved a doubtful smile.
"Come in!" he said, haltingly. "Where did you drop from?
Glad to see you! How are all your people?"
