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-b.u.t.ter.
"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, pa.s.sing 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.
CHAPTER V.
A TELEGRAM TO FRANKFORT.
The success of Lady Valentine"s Sat.u.r.day 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 Omof.a.ga. 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 a.s.serted that the said African chiefs, from whom Ruston and his friends derived their t.i.tle to Omof.a.ga, had acted in a manner that belied the character for honesty and simplicity in commercial matters (existing side by side with 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 Omof.a.ga 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 a.s.sociation 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 Omof.a.ga 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 Omof.a.ga 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 Omof.a.ga, 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 of the a.s.sociation 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 Omof.a.gas 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 Omof.a.ga--and went to Frankfort to track the German capitalists to their lair. Meanwhile, the issue of the Omof.a.ga 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 conspicuous triumph. Belford and Loring quarrelled about Omof.a.ga, 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 Sat.u.r.day afternoon, would not go out in the Canadian canoe with Evan, but insisted on taking a walk with Mr. Belford and hearing all about Omof.a.ga. 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 gla.s.ses on her nose, and observed, with a careful imitation of Tom"s forms of expression,
"I wonder at fellows who drift through life in subordinate positions without the--the _s.p.u.n.k_--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 ash.o.r.e, Mr.
Loring."