"I am not in your way, am I, Rendel?"
Rendel also made a conscious effort as he replied, rising from his chair as he spoke--
"Oh no, Sir William, please come in. I have some writing to finish, if you don"t mind."
"Pray go on," said Sir William; "I won"t disturb you. I"ll sit down here and read the paper till you are ready"; and he sat down with his back to the writing-table and the window, in the big chair which Rendel drew forward.
"Thank you," Sir William said. "I took the liberty of bringing in your afternoon paper which was outside."
"Certainly," Rendel replied, too absorbed for the moment in the thing his own attention was concentrated upon to realise the bearing of what Gore was saying. "Of course," and went back to his writing.
Gore leant back, idly turning over the pages of the _Mayfair Gazette_; then he started as his eye fell on the alarmist announcements. What was this? What incredible things were these that he saw? The letters were swimming before him; he could only vaguely distinguish the black capitals and the headlines; the rest was a blur. All that stood out clearly was: "Cape to Cairo Railway in Danger," and then beneath it: "Sinister Rumours about the "Equator, Ltd.""
"Rendel!" he said, half starting up. Rendel turned round with a start, dragging his mind from the thing it was bent upon. "How awful this is!"
said Sir William, holding up the paper with a shaking hand. Rendel began to understand. But, that he should have to look up for one moment, for the fraction of a second, from those words that he was transcribing!
"Yes, yes, it is terrible," he said, and bent over his writing again.
Sir William tried to go on reading. What was this about Germany? War would mean the collapse of everything--private schemes as well as all others.
"War! Do you think it can possibly mean war?" he said. "Can"t Germany be squared?"
"War!" said Rendel without looking up. "Who can tell?" And again he felt the supreme excitement of standing unseen at the right hand of the man who was driving the ship through the storm. Sir William laid down the paper on his knee and tried to think, but all he could do was to close his eyes and keep perfectly still. Everything was vague ... and the worst of it--or was it the best of it?--was that nothing seemed to matter.
At the same moment a brief colloquy was being exchanged outside the hall door. Stamfordham"s brougham had drawn up again, and Thacker, who was standing hanging about the hall with a secret intention of being on the spot if tremendous things were going to happen, had instantly rushed out.
"Is Mr. Rendel in?" said Lord Stamfordham hurriedly as Thacker stood at the door of the brougham.
"Yes, my lord."
"Ask him to come and speak to me."
Thacker was shaken into unwonted excitement; he opened the door of the study quickly and went in. Sir William started violently. Any sudden noise in the present state of his nerves threw him completely off his balance.
"Can you come and speak to Lord Stamfordham, sir?"
Rendel sprang up; then with a sudden thought turned back and pulled down the top of his writing-table, which shut with a spring, and rushed out without seeing that Sir William had begun raising himself laboriously from his chair as he said--
"Don"t let me be in your way, Rendel."
"His lordship is not coming in, Sir William," said Thacker.
Sir William sank back into his chair. Thacker, after waiting an instant as though to see whether Gore had any orders for him, went quietly out, closing the door after him.
Rendel had madly caught up a hat as he pa.s.sed, and flown down the steps, not seeing in his haste a burly personage who was coming along the pavement dressed in the ordinary garb of the English citizen, with nothing about him to show that his glowing right hand held the thunderbolts which he was going to hurl at the head of Gore. It is unnecessary to say that Robert Pateley knew Stamfordham"s carriage well by sight; and it was with pleasure and satisfaction that he found that Providence had brought him on to the pavement at Cosmo Place in time to see one of the moves in the great game which the world was playing that day. It was better on the whole that he should not accost Rendel. There was no need at that moment for Stamfordham to be aware of his presence, although, after all, there was no reason why he should not be. But seeing Rendel standing speaking to Stamfordham at the door of the brougham he conceived that he was probably coming in again directly, and made up his mind to go in and see Gore at any rate if possible. He went up the steps, therefore, and into the house, the front door being open.
It happened neither Rendel nor Stamfordham saw him enter, the former having his back turned and blocking the view of the latter. Thacker, with intense interest, was watching the development of affairs from the dining-room window, and did not see Pateley go in either.
"Have you done the thing?" said Stamfordham quickly.
"All but," Rendel said.
"Well, I want you to add this," said Stamfordham. "Get in and drive back with me, will you? I have so little time."
Rendel jumped in, and the brougham moved past the window just as Sir William Gore, who had painfully pulled himself out of his chair, looked out, petrified with surprise at the unexplained crisis that seemed to have come upon the household. "Stamfordham!" he said to himself, "and Frank! What are the Imperialists hatching now, I wonder?" and he mechanically looked round him at Rendel"s writing-table. It was, however, closed and forbidding, save for a little corner of white paper that was sticking out under the revolving flap. By one of those strange, almost unconscious impulses which may suddenly overtake the best of us at times, Gore put out his hand and pulled out the paper. It was quite loose and came away in his hand. What was it? He looked at it vaguely.
Then gradually it became clear. A map?... yes, it was a rough map, with a thick line drawn from the top to the bottom down the middle of it; names to the right and the left. England? Germany? And what were those words written underneath? _What?_ Was that how Germany was going to be "squared?" And sheer excitement gave him strength to grasp more or less the meaning of what he saw. If Africa were going to be divided, if Germany and England were agreeing to that division, it meant Peace.
There was no doubt of it. But had the Imperialists suddenly gone on to the side of peace? Had they s.n.a.t.c.hed that trump card from their adversaries and were they going to play it? Sir William stood gazing at the paper. Then as he heard some one at the door of the room he suddenly realised what he had done. He instinctively clutched the paper in the hand which held the _Mayfair Gazette_, the newspaper concealing it. As he turned and looked towards the door an unexpected sight greeted his eyes--no other than Pateley, who, finding himself in the hall unheralded, had made up his mind to come into Rendel"s study and there ring the bell for some one who should bring word to Sir William Gore of his presence. But he was surprised to find Sir William downstairs instead of in his room as he had expected. He paused for a moment, shocked at the change in Gore"s appearance. He looked thin, listless, bent: his upright figure, his spring, his energy were gone. Pateley"s heart smote him for a moment. Would it be possible to call this feeble, suffering creature to account? Then his heart hardened again as he thought of his sisters.
"Pateley!" said Gore, advancing with the remains of his usual manner, but curiously shaken for the moment, as Pateley said to himself, out of his usual self-confidence.
The state of nervousness of the older man was painfully perceptible.
Added to his general weakness, which made the mere fact of seeing some one unexpectedly a sudden shock to him, he had besides at that moment an additional and very definite reason for uneasiness in the thing which he held in his hand. He endeavoured, however, to pull himself together as he shook hands with Pateley.
"I have not seen you for a long time," he said, pointing to a chair and sinking back into his own.
"No," Pateley replied. "I was very sorry to hear that you had been ill.
You are looking rather bad still."
"And feeling so," Sir William said wearily. "The worst of influenza is that one feels just as bad when one is supposed to be getting better as when one is supposed to be getting worse. It is a most annoying form of complaint."
"So I have understood," said Pateley, "though I have not learnt it by personal experience."
"No, you don"t look as though you suffered from weakness," said Sir William, with a faint smile and a consciousness that this was not a person from whom it would be very easy to extract sympathy for his own condition.
Pateley paused. He felt curiously uncomfortable and hesitating, a sensation somewhat novel to him. Sir William leant back in his chair, trying to control the trembling of his hands, of which one held the _Mayfair Gazette_, the smaller paper still concealed underneath it.
"I see," Pateley said, "you are reading the evening paper. Not very good reading, is it? Things look pretty bad."
"They do indeed," said Sir William.
"It looks uncommonly like war with Germany," Pateley said; "prices are tumbling down headlong on the Stock Exchange. I believe there is going to be something very like a panic."
"Is there?" said Gore uneasily; "that"s bad."
"Yes, it is very bad," Pateley went on. "I suppose you have heard that there are ugly rumours about the "Equator.""
"I saw something," Sir William said, forcing himself to speak. "What is it exactly that they say?"
"Well, the last thing they say," Pateley replied with a harder ring in his voice, "is that it is not a gold mine at all."
"What?" said Sir William, grasping the arms of his chair.
"And that the whole thing, therefore, is going to pieces with every penny invested in it."
"Is it--is it as bad as that?" said the other, tremulously. "No, no, it can"t be. Surely it can"t be."
"Do you mean to say you don"t know?" said Pateley.
"I know nothing," said Sir William. "I have heard nothing about it, up to this moment."
"One can"t help wondering," said Pateley, "that a man in your responsible position towards it," the words struck Sir William like a blow, "should not have known, should not have inquired----"