"Now, your man at Royan was excellent--kept his head all through--and a light hand, too. Got him with you in Paris?"
"No, I have not. To-morrow morning, about ten o"clock--in notes."
And Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence tapped a neat gloved finger on the corner of the table with some determination.
"I remember--at dessert--you told me you wanted to realise a considerable sum of money at the beginning of the year, to put into some business venture. Is this part of that sum?"
"Yes," returned the lady, arranging her veil.
"A venture of Dormer Colville"s, I think you told me--while we were having coffee. One never gets coffee hot enough in a private house, but yours was all right."
"Yes," mumbled Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, behind her quick finger, busy with the veil.
Beneath the sleepy lids John Turner"s eyes, which were small and deep-sunken in the flesh, like the eyes of a pig, noted in pa.s.sing that his client"s cheeks were momentarily pink.
"I hope you don"t mean to suggest that there is anything unsafe in Mr.
Colville as a business man?"
"Heaven forbid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Turner. "On the contrary, he is most enterprising. And I know no one who smokes a better cigar than Colville--when he can get it. And the young fellow seemed nice enough."
"Which young fellow?" inquired the lady, sharply.
"His young friend--the man who was with him. I think you told me, after luncheon, that Colville required the money to start his young friend in business."
"Never!" laughed Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, who, if she felt momentarily uneasy, was quickly rea.s.sured. For this was one of those fortunate ladies who go through life with the comforting sense of being always cleverer than their neighbour. If the neighbour happen to be a man, and a stout one, the conviction is the stronger for those facts. "Never! I never told you that. You must have dreamt it."
"Perhaps I did," admitted the banker, placidly. "I am afraid I often feel sleepy after luncheon. Perhaps I dreamt it. But I could not hand such a sum in notes to an unprotected lady, even if I can effect a sale of your securities so quickly as to have the money ready by to-morrow morning.
Perhaps Colville will call for it himself."
"If he is in Paris."
"Every one is in Paris now," was Mr. Turner"s opinion. "And if he likes to bring his young friend with him, all the better. In these uncertain times it is not fair on a man to hand to him a large sum of money in notes." He paused and jerked his thumb toward the window, which was a double one, looking down into the Rue Lafayette. "There are always people in the streets watching those who pa.s.s in and out of a bank. If a man comes out smiling, with his hand on his pocket, he is followed, and if an opportunity occurs, he is robbed. Better not have it in notes."
"I know," replied Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, not troubling further to deceive one so lethargic and simple. "I know that Dormer wants it in notes."
"Then let him come and fetch it."
Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence rose from her chair and shook her dress into straighter folds, with the air of having accomplished a task which she had known to be difficult, but not impossible to one equipped with wit and self-confidence.
"You will sell the securities, and have it all ready by ten o"clock to-morrow morning," she repeated, with a feminine insistence.
"You shall have the money to-morrow morning, whether I succeed in selling for cash or not," was the reply, and John Turner concealed a yawn with imperfect success.
"A loan?"
"No banker lends--except to kings," replied Turner, stolidly. "Call it an accommodation."
Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence glanced at him sharply over the fur collar which she was clasping round her neck. Here was a banker, reputed wealthy, who sat in a bare room, without so much as a fireproof safe to suggest riches; a business man of world-wide affairs, who drummed indolent fingers on a bare table; a philosopher with a maxim ever ready to teach, as all maxims do, cowardice in the guise of prudence, selfishness masquerading as worldly wisdom, hard-heartedness pa.s.sing for foresight.
Here was one who seemed to see, and was yet too sleepy to perceive. Mrs.
St. Pierre Lawrence was not always sure of her banker, but now, as ever before, one glance at his round, heavy face rea.s.sured her. She laughed and went away, well satisfied with the knowledge, only given to women, of having once more carried out her object with the completeness which is known as twisting round the little finger.
She nodded to Turner, who had ponderously risen from the chair which was more comfortable than the client"s seat, and held the door open for her to pa.s.s. He glanced at the clock as he did so. And she knew that he was thinking that it was nearly the luncheon hour, so transparent to the feminine perception are the thoughts of men.
When he had closed the door he returned to his writing-table. Like many stout people, he moved noiselessly, and quickly enough when the occasion demanded haste.
He wrote three letters in a very few minutes, and, when they were addressed, he tapped on the table with the end of his pen-holder, which brought, in the twinkling of an eye, that clerk whose business it was to abandon his books when called.
"I shall not go out to luncheon until I have the written receipt for each one of those letters," said the banker, knowing that until he went out to luncheon his six clerks must needs go hungry. "Not an answer," he explained, "but a receipt in the addressee"s writing."
And while the clerk hurried from the room and down the stone stairs at a break-neck speed, Turner sank back into his chair, with l.u.s.treless eyes fixed on s.p.a.ce.
"No one can wait," he was in the habit of saying, "better than I can."
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LANE OF MANY TURNINGS
If John Turner expected Colville to bring Loo Barebone with him to the Rue Lafayette he was, in part, disappointed. Colville arrived in a hired carriage, of which the blinds were partially lowered.
The driver had been instructed to drive into the roomy court-yard of the house of which Turner"s office occupied the first floor. Carriages frequently waited there, by the side of a little fountain which splashed all day and all night into a circular basin.
Colville descended from the carriage and turned to speak to Loo, who was left sitting within it. Since the unfortunate night at the Hotel Gemosac, when they had been on the verge of a quarrel, a certain restraint had characterised their intercourse. Colville was shy of approaching the subject upon which they had differed. His easy laugh had not laughed away the grim fact that he had deceived Loo in such a manner that complicity was practically forced upon an innocent man.
Loo had not given his decision yet. He had waited a week, during which time Colville had not dared to ask him whether his mind was made up.
There was a sort of recklessness in Loo"s manner which at once puzzled and alarmed his mentor. At times he was gay, as he always had been, and in the midst of his gaiety he would turn away with a gloomy face and go to his own room.
To press the question would be to precipitate a catastrophe. Dormer Colville decided to go on as if nothing had happened. It is a compromise with the inconveniences of untruth to which we must all resort at some crisis or another in life.
"I will not be long," he a.s.sured Barebone, with a gay laugh. The prospect of handling one hundred thousand francs in notes was perhaps exhilarating; though the actual possession of great wealth would seem to be of the contrary tendency. There is a profound melancholy peculiar to the face of the millionaire. "I shall not be long; for he is a man of his word, and the money will be ready."
John Turner was awaiting his visitor, and gave a large soft hand inertly into Colville"s warm grasp.
"I always wish I saw more of you," said the new-comer.
"Is there not enough of me already?" inquired the banker, pointing to the vacant chair, upon which fell the full light of the double window. A smaller window opposite to it afforded a view of the court-yard. And it was at this smaller window that Colville glanced as he sat down, with a pause indicative of reluctance.
Turner saw the glance and noted the reluctance. He concluded, perhaps, in the slow, sure mind that worked behind his little peeping eyes, that Loo Barebone was in the carriage in the court-yard, and that Colville was anxious to return to him as soon as possible.
"It is very kind of you to say that, I am sure," pursued Turner, rousing himself to be pleasant and conversational. "But, although the loss is mine, my dear Colville, the fault is mostly yours. You always know where to find me when you want my society. I am anch.o.r.ed in this chair, whereas one never knows where one has a b.u.t.terfly like yourself."
"A b.u.t.terfly that is getting a bit heavy on the wing," answered Colville, with his wan and sympathetic smile. He sat forward in the chair in an att.i.tude antipathetic to digression from the subject in hand.
"I do not see any evidence of that. One hears of you here and there in France. I suppose, for instance, you know more than any man in Paris at the present moment of the--" he paused and suppressed a yawn, "the--er--vintage. Anything in it--eh?"
"So far as I could judge, the rains came too late; but I shall be glad to tell you all about it another time. This morning--"