"What do you mean?" asked Montague.
"Your client no longer has the stock that you are talking about,"
said the other.
Montague caught his breath. "No longer has the stock!" he gasped.
"Of course not," said Hanson. "She sold it three days ago." Then, unable to deny himself the satisfaction, he added, "She sold it to Stanley Ryder. And if you want to know any more about it, she sold it for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars, and he gave her a six months" note for a hundred and forty thousand."
Montague was utterly dumfounded. He could do nothing but stare.
It was evident to the other man that his emotion was genuine, and he smiled sarcastically. "Evidently, Mr. Montague," he said, "you have been permitting your client to take advantage of you."
Montague caught himself together, and bowed politely. "I owe you an apology, Mr. Hanson," he said, in a low voice. "I can only a.s.sure you that I was entirely helpless in the matter."
Then he rose and bade the man good morning.
When the door of his office was closed, he caught at the chair by his desk to steady himself, and stood staring in front of him. "To Stanley Ryder!" he gasped.
He turned to the "phone, and called up his friend.
"Lucy," he said, "is it true that you have sold that stock?"
He heard her give a gasp. "Answer me!" he cried.
"Allan," she began, "you are going to be angry with me--"
"Please answer me!" he cried again. "Have you sold that stock?"
"Yes, Allan," she said, "I didn"t mean--"
"I don"t care to discuss the matter on the telephone," he said. "I will stop in to see you this afternoon on my way home. Please be in, because it is important." And then he hung up the receiver.
He called at the time he had set, and Lucy was waiting for him. She looked pale, and very much distressed. She sat in a chair, and neither arose to greet him nor spoke to him, but simply gazed into his face.
It was a very sombre face. "This thing has given me a great deal of pain," said Montague; "and I don"t want to prolong it any more than necessary. I have thought the matter over, and my mind is made up, so there need be no discussion. It will not be possible for me to have anything further to do with your affairs."
Lucy gave a gasp: "Oh, Allan!"
He had a valise containing all her papers. "I have brought everything up to date," he said. "There are all the accounts, and the correspondence. Anyone will be able to find exactly how things stand."
"Allan," she said, "this is really cruel."
"I am very sorry," he answered, "but there is nothing else that I can do."
"But did I not have a right to sell that stock to Stanley Ryder?"
she cried.
"You had a perfect right to sell it to anyone you pleased," he said.
"But you had no right to ask me to take charge of your affairs, and then to keep me in the dark about what you had done."
"But, Allan," she protested, "I only sold it three days ago."
"I know that perfectly well," he said; "but the moment you made up your mind to sell it, it was your business to tell me. That, however, is not the point. You tried to use me as a cat"s-paw to pull chestnuts out of the fire for Stanley Ryder."
He saw her wince under the words. "Is it not true?" he demanded.
"Was it not he who told you to have me try to get that information?"
"Yes, Allan, of course it was he," said Lucy. "But don"t you see my plight? I am not a business woman, and I did not realise--"
"You realised that you were not dealing frankly with me," he said.
"That is all that I care about, and that is why I am not willing to continue to represent you. Stanley Ryder has bought your stock, and Stanley Ryder will have to be your adviser in the future."
He had not meant to discuss the matter with her any further, but he saw how profoundly he had hurt her, and the old bond between them held him still.
"Can"t you understand what you did to me, Lucy?" he exclaimed.
"Imagine my position, talking to Mr. Hanson, I knowing nothing and he knowing everything. He knew what you had been paid, and he even knew that you had taken a note."
Lucy stared at Montague with wide-open eyes. "Allan!" she gasped.
"You see what it means," he said. "I told you that you could not keep your doings secret. Now it will only be a matter of a few days before everybody who knows will be whispering that you have permitted Stanley Ryder to do this for you."
There was a long silence. Lucy sat staring before her. Then suddenly she faced Montague.
"Allan!" she cried. "Surely--you understand!"
She burst out violently, "I had a right to sell that stock! Ryder needed it. He is going to organise a syndicate, and develop the property. It was a simple matter of business."
"I have no doubt of it, Lucy," said Montague, in a low voice, "but how will you persuade the world of that? I told you what would happen if you permitted yourself to be intimate with a man like Stanley Ryder. You will find out too late what it means. Certainly that incident with Waterman ought to have opened your eyes to what people are saying."
Lucy gave a start, and gazed at him with horror in her eyes.
"Allan!" she panted.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Do you mean to tell me that happened to me because Stanley Ryder is my friend?"
"Of course I do," said he. "Waterman had heard the gossip, and he thought that if Ryder was a rich man, he was a ten-times-richer man."
Montague could see the colour mount swiftly over Lucy"s throat and face. She stood twisting her hands together nervously. "Oh, Allan!"
she said. "That is monstrous!"
"It is not of my making. It is the way the world is. I found it out myself, and I tried to point it out to you."
"But it is horrible!" she cried. "I will not believe it. I will not yield to such things. I will not be coward enough to give up a friend for such a motive!"
"I know the feeling," said Montague. "I"d stand by you, if it were another man than Stanley Ryder. But I know him better than you, I believe."
"You don"t, Allan, you can"t!" she protested. "I tell you he is a good man! He is a man n.o.body understands--"