The Profiteers Part 9

"Not for a few days," he replied. "I have to think out many details, to get my tools together, and then to decide whether I should have a reasonable chance of success."

"Promise me that I shall help?" she insisted.

"I promise that you shall have the opportunity."

She rose from her chair and settled down in a corner of the settee.

With a little half-conscious gesture she invited him to take the place by her side.

"Do you know," she said, "that you are making life much more endurable for me?"

"You should never believe it unendurable," he told her firmly.

"Whatever one has suffered, and however dreary the present, there is always the future."

"I wonder," she murmured. "In this life or the next?"

"In this one," he answered.

"Are you, by the by, a believer in anything beyond?" she went on.

"A struggling one," he replied. "I have wanted so much to believe that I think I have at times almost succeeded."

"I believe," she said reflectively, "but I cannot a.n.a.lyse my belief. I am most content when I keep my brain shut off from it and consider it as an instinct. I try to tell myself that the power which is responsible for the sorrows of this world must provide compensation. Even history can show us that this has always been the case. Yesterday," she continued, "I went to a spiritual seance. I found nothing. I shall go to the next thing of the sort which any one suggests. I am like the hypochondriac with his list of patent medicines. I try them all, but my heart still aches."

"I think," he admitted, "that _au fond_ I have, like most men, a strong leaven of materialism in me. I have had my disappointments in life. I want my compensations here, in the same world where I have suffered."

"Why should we not try to believe, like La Fontaine," she questioned, "that sorrow and unhappiness are akin to disease, a mental instead of a physical scourge--that it must pa.s.s just as inevitably?"

"It is a comfortable philosophy," he confessed. "Could you adopt it?"

"In my blackest moments I should have scoffed at the idea," she replied.

"One thing I know quite well, though, is unchanging," she continued, her face losing all the gentle softness which a moment before he had found so fascinating, so reminiscent of those sad, sleepy-eyed women immortalised by the masters of the Renaissance. "That is my hatred of everything and everybody connected with my present life."

"Everybody?" he murmured.

She stretched out her hand impulsively. He held it in his with a tender, caressing clasp. There seemed to be no need of words. The moment was in its way so wonderful that neither of them heard the opening of the door.

It was only the surprised exclamation of the man who had entered which brought them back to a very sordid present.

CHAPTER VII

"I fear" the newcomer remarked, as he softly closed the door behind him, "that I am an intruder. Perhaps, Josephine, I may be favoured with an introduction to this gentleman? He is a stranger to me, so far as I remember. An old friend of yours, I presume?"

He advanced a step or two farther into the room, a slim, effeminate-looking person of barely medium height, dressed with the utmost care, of apparently no more than middle age but with crow's-feet about his eyes and sagging pockets of flesh underneath them. His closely trimmed, sandy moustache was streaked with grey, his eyes were a little bloodshot, he had the shrinking manner of one who suffers from habitual nervousness. Josephine, after her first start of surprise, watched him with coldly questioning eyes.

"I hope you have dined, Henry," she said. "A waiter rang up from somewhere to say you would not be home."

"A message which I do not doubt left you inconsolable," he observed, with a little curl of his lips. "Do not distress yourself, I pray. I have dined at the club, and I have only come home to change. I am on my way to a party. I would not have intruded if your maid had shown her usual discretion."

Josephine ignored the insolent innuendo.

"You do not know my husband, I think, Mr. Wingate," she said,--"Mr. John Wingate--Lord Dredlinton."

The newcomer's manner underwent a sudden change.

"What, John Wingate from New York?" he exclaimed.

Wingate a.s.sented briefly. Lord Dredlinton advanced at once with outstretched hand. All the amiability which he could muster at a moment's notice was diffused into his tone and manner.

"My dear sir," he said, "I am delighted to meet you. I have just been dining with our mutual friend, Peter Phipps, and your name was the last mentioned. I, in fact, accepted a commission to find you out and convey a message from Phipps. There is a little matter in which you are both indirectly interested which he wants to discuss."

Wingate had risen to his feet. By the side of the slighter man, his height and appearance seemed almost imposing.

"To be quite frank with you, Lord Dredlinton," he said, as he returned the newcomer's greeting without enthusiasm, "I cannot imagine any subject in which I could share an interest with Mr. Phipps."

Lord Dredlinton was politely surprised.

"Is that so? Peter Phipps is an awfully good fellow."

"Mr. Phipps is a director of the British and Imperial Granaries, Limited," Wingate said quietly.

"So am I," Lord Dredlinton announced, with a bland smile.

"I am aware of it," was the curt reply.

"You don't approve of our company?"

"I do not."

Lord Dredlinton shrugged his shoulders. He lit a cigarette and dismissed the subject.

"Well, well," he continued amiably, "there is no need for us to quarrel, I hope. We all look at things differently in this world, and, fortunately, the matter which I want to discuss with you lies right outside the operations of the B. & I. When can you give me a few moments of your time, Mr. Wingate? Will you call around at our offices, Number 13 Throgmorton Street, next Tuesday morning at, say? eleven-thirty?"

Wingate was a little perplexed.

"I don't want to waste your time, Lord Dredlinton," he said. "Can't you give me some idea as to the nature of this business?"

"To tell you the truth, I can't," the other confided. "It's more Phipps'

affair than mine. I'll promise, though, that we won't keep you for longer than ten minutes."

"I will come then." Wingate acquiesced a little doubtfully. "I must warn you, however, that between Phipps and myself there is a quarrel of ancient standing. We meet as acquaintances because the conventions of the world make anything else ridiculous. One of my objects in coming to this side is to consider whether I can find any reasonable means of attacking the very disgraceful trust with which you and he are a.s.sociated."

Lord Dredlinton remained entirely unruffled. He shrugged his shoulders with an air of protest.

"You are a little severe, Mr. Wingate," he said, "but I promise you that Phipps shall keep his temper and that I will not be drawn into a quarrel.

I am very pleased to see you here. My wife's friends are always mine.--If you will excuse me, I will go and change my clothes now. I have been inveigled into the last word of our present-day frivolities--a theatrical supper party."