Illustration: Josephine flashed a brilliant smile upon Wingate, ignored her husband and Phipps, and passed on
THIS is Mr. Oppenheim at his best—the story of Wingate, America's young financial wizard.
Arriving in England, he finds himself almost immediately involved in a fight to the finish with unscrupulous Peter Phipps, his old-time enemy.
Phipps is cornering the world's wheat-supply through British & Imperial Granaries. He has a sentimental interest in the Countess of Dredlinton and has put her rotter husband on his directorate.
Wingate discovers that the countess is the girl he loved in France as “Sister Josephine.” Preparing to fight Phipps, he employs Andrew Slate, well known in the underworld.
At a supper-party, at which both Wingate and Phipps are present Dredlinton offers, as a drunken jest, to auction off his wife, Wingate drags him from the room. At the party, Wingate meets Flossie Lane, a musical-comedy actress, who shows an immediate interest in him.
XII
ANDREW SLATE, a very personable man in his spring clothes of gray tweed, took up his hat and prepared to depart. Half-past twelve had just struck by Wingate's clock, and the two men had been together since ten.
“You're a wonderful person, Wingate,” Slate said, with admiration in his tone. “I don't believe there's another man breathing who would have had the courage to plan a coup like this.”
Wingate shrugged his shoulders.
“The men who dig deep into life,” he replied, as he shook hands, “are the men who take risks. I was never meant to be one of those who scratch about on the surface.”
A note was slipped into his letter-box as he let Slate out. He read it slowly, with a hard smile upon his lips.
- My dear Mr. Wingate,
- I am writing to express to you my sincere and heartfelt regret for last night's unfortunate incident. I can do no more nor any less than to confess in plain words that I was drunk. It is a humiliating confession, but it happens to be the truth. Will you accept this apology in the spirit in which is tendered, and wipe out the whole incident from your memory?
Dredlinton.
Wingate was conscious of a feeling of disappointment as he threw the note upon the table. Open warfare was, after all, so much better. An amende so complete left him with no alternative save acquiescence. Even while he was coming to this somewhat unwelcome decision, the telephone-bell rang. It was Josephine speaking.
“Is that Mr. Wingate?” she asked.
“It is,” he admitted “Good morning—Josephine!”
“Quite right,” she answered composedly. “That is how I like to have you call me. I am speaking for my husband. He is here by my side at the present moment, and desires me to intercede with you, to beg your acceptance of the apology which he has sent you this morning.”
“No further word need be spoken upon the subject,” Wingate replied. “Your husband has tendered his apology. I accept it.”
There was a brief pause. Josephine was obviously repeating Wingate's decision to her husband. Then she spoke again.
“My husband desires me to thank you,” she said. “He desires me to hope that you will continue to visit at the house, and that you will not allow anything he may have said to interfere between our friendship.”
“Nothing that he has said or could say could interfere with that,” Wingate assured her. “Shall I see you to-day?”
“I hope so,” she answered. “Perhaps after luncheon.”
There was a sound as though the receiver had been taken from her fingers. Dredlinton himself spoke.
“Look here, Wingate: This is Dredlinton speaking,” he said. “You won't let this little affair make any difference in your call upon us on Tuesday morning?”
“Certainly not,” Wingate replied. “I was thinking of writing you about that, though. I don't see any object in my coming. I think you had better let me off that visit.”
“My dear fellow,” Dredlinton pleaded, “if you don't come, Phipps will think it is because of last night's affair, and I shall get it in the neck. I'm in disgrace enough already.”
Wingate hesitated for a moment.
“Very well,” he assented; “I will go. Is that all?”
“That's all. Thanks.”
“I should like to speak to your wife again,” Wingate said.
“Sorry—she's just gone out,” was the rather malicious reply. “I'd have kept her for you if I'd known. So long!”
A knocking at the door—a rather low, suggestive knocking. Wingate knew that it was an impossibility, but he nevertheless hastened to throw it open. Miss Flossie Lane stood there, very becomingly dressed in a tailor-made costume of covert coating. She wore a hat with yellow buttercups.
“Miss Lane!” he exclaimed.
She looked at him with wide-open eyes.
“But you were expecting me, weren't you?” she asked. “I remembered your inviting me quite well, but I couldn't remember where you said. So I thought I'd better come and fetch you. I haven't done wrong, have I?”
“Most certainly not,” Wingate replied. “Come in, please. I'll ring for a cocktail and send down to engage a table.”
She sank into an easy chair and looked round her, while Wingate did as he had suggested. The sitting-room was a very masculine but eminently habitable apartment.
“This is quite the nicest flat in the court,” she declared, “and I've been in so many of them. How did you find time to furnish it like this? I thought that you'd only just arrived from America.”
“I come to London often enough to keep this little suite here,” he explained. “I am one of those domestic people who like to have a home of some sort to come to at the end of a journey.”
“You're much too nice to live alone,” she ventured.
The cocktails and Wingate's choice of a table in the grill-room were alike approved of. Wingate himself, as soon as he had recovered from the assurance with which his guest had manufactured her invitation, devoted himself, with a hard light in his eyes, to the task of entertaining her. The whole gamut of her attractions were let loose for his benefit. He represented to her the one desirable thing, difficult of attainment, perhaps, but worth the effort. Soft glances and words hinting at tenderness, sighs and half-spoken appeals were all made to serve their obvious purpose. If Wingate's responses were a little artificial, he still made no attempt to hurry through the meal.
They took their coffee and liqueurs in the foyer. Flossie, perfectly satisfied with her companion and her progress with him, chattered gaily away with hardly a pause, and Wingate, after his first resentment at her coming had passed, found a certain relief in sitting and listening to her equable flow of nonsense.
“You know Lady Dredlinton very well, don't you, Mr. Wingate?” she asked presently.
His answer was marked with a warning note of stiffness.
“Lady Dredlinton?” he repeated. “I know her—certainly. I was at her hospital at Étaples.”
“Everyone says that she is charming,” the young lady continued, with a side glance at him. “Pity she can't keep that wicked husband of hers a little more under control. You know, Mr. Wingate,” she confided, “he has asked me to supper four or five times, but I have never cared about going with him quite alone. A girl has to be so careful in my position.”
“I suppose so,” he replied absently, for his eyes were fixed upon two men walking up the carpeted way from the restaurant. One was Peter Phipps, the other Lord Dredlinton. Flossie Lane, seeking to discover the cause of her companion's abstraction, glanced in the same direction and recognized them at once.
“Why, here is Lord Dredlinton!” she exclaimed. “And Mr. Peter Phipps! He is rather a dear person, Mr. Phipps!”
“Is he?” Wingate observed grimly.
“They are coming to speak to us,” the young lady went on. “What a bother!”
Lord Dredlinton, more dignified than usual, but, if possible, still more unpleasant, threaded his way between the chairs and paused before the two, followed, a few paces behind, by Phipps. “Hullo, Flossie!” the former exclaimed. “How are you, Wingate? You got my letter?”
“I received your letter and also your telephone message,” Wingate replied stiffly. “So far as I am concerned, the matter, as I told you, is at an end.”
“That's all right, then. Flossie,” Dredlinton continued, looking reproachfully at the young woman, “I told you last night that you ought to know better. You should confine your attentions to the black sheep of the world like me. Dear me!” he went on, standing a little on one side so as not to conceal Wingate. “My wife, apparently, has been lunching here. Wingate, shall we form a screen in front of you, or are you content to be toppled from your pedestal?”
Wingate met the ill-natured sneer indifferently. He even smiled as Phipps, standing outside the little circle, also altered his position. It was clearly the intention of both that Josephine should realize the situation. Attracted by a gesture from her husband, she glanced across at them. For a single moment, she half hesitated. There was a look in her eyes of surprise mingled with pain. Then she flashed a brilliant smile upon Wingate, ignored her husband and Phipps, and passed on.
“Cut!” Lord Dredlinton exclaimed, with mock dismay. “Cut, my friend Phipps! Me, her husband, and you, her dear friend! Really, it's a most uncomfortable thing to have a disapproving wife going about to the same restaurants and places. Let us go and sulk in a corner, Phipps, and leave this little comedy here to develop. Farewell, faithless Flossie! Wingate,” he concluded, shaking his head, “you have disappointed me.”
They passed on. The young lady tossed her head angrily.
“There are times,” she announced, “when I hate Lord Dredlinton. I don't know anyone who can say such horrid things without being actually rude. I'm sure his wife looks much too good for him,” she added generously.
Wingate's nerves were all on edge. He glanced at his watch and rose regretfully to his feet.
“I am afraid,” he said, as he led the way toward the exit, “that I must go back to work. Thank you so much for coming and taking pity upon a lonely man, Miss Lane.”
“You can have all that sort of pity you like,” she whispered.
“Then I shall certainly make demands upon it,” he assured her, as they parted at the door.
He found himself presently back in the cool and pleasantly austere surroundings of his sitting-room, and threw himself into easy chair drawn up in front of the wide-flung windows. He felt a sudden and passionate distaste for his recent environment—the faint perfume which had crept out from the girl's hair and face as she had leaned toward him, the brushing of her clothes against his, the daring exposure of silk stocking, the continual flirtatious appeal of her eyes and lips. He felt himself in revolt against even that faint instinct of toleration which her prettiness and, at times, subtle advances had kindled in him. He let his thoughts rest upon the more wonderful things which smoldered in his brain and leaped like fire through his veins when he dared to think of them. The room seemed suddenly purified, made fit for her presence.
“I am sure that Mr. Wingate will see me if he is alone, heard a familiar voice say.
He sprang to his feet, realizing, in those few moments, into what paradise his thoughts had been climbing.
XIII
Josephine accepted the easy chair which he wheeled up for her and glanced round the room critically.
“Just what I expected,” she murmured. “A nice, healthy man's room, without too much furniture and with plenty of books. You are wondering why I came, of course.”
“I am too content with the good fortune which brought you to find time for wonder,” he replied.
“You'll laugh at me when I tell you,” she warned him.
“You needn't tell me at all unless you like. You are here. That is enough for me.”
“I am putting myself into the confessional,” she declared. “I was leaving the place with a disagreeable taste in my mouth. At the last moment, even as I was stepping into a taxi-cab, I turned back. I went, instead, to the desk and boldly asked for the number of your suite. I want that taste removed, please.”
“Tell me how I can do it in the quickest possible manner,” he begged.
She turned and looked at him, inquiringly at first, then with a delightful little smile.
“By assuring me that you are not going to emulate, in however innocent a fashion, my husband's exploits in the musical-comedy world.”
He leaned over her chair and looked into her eyes.
“Honestly,” he asked, “do you need any assurance?”
“That is the funny part of it,” she laughed. “Since I am here, since I have seen you, I don't feel that I do, but down-stairs I had quite a horrid little pain.”
“You will never have occasion to feel it again,” he told her. “I met Miss Flossie Lane last night for the first time at the supper-party to which Roger Kendrick took me. I was placed next to her and, somehow or other, she seems to have convinced herself that I invited her to lunch to-day.”
“And you?”
“To be perfectly honest, I can't remember having done anything of the sort. However, what was I to do?”
“What you did, of course. That is finished. Now tell me about that party? Was Dredlinton really rude to you?”
“Your husband was drunk,” Wingate answered. “He was rude to everybody.”
“And what was the end of it?”
“I carried him out of the room and locked him up,” he told her.
She laughed softly.
“I can see you doing it,” she declared. “Are you as strong as you look, Mr. John Wingate?”
“I am strong enough to carry you away and lock you up if you don't call me 'John,'” he replied.
“'John,' then,” she said. “I don't mind calling you 'John.' I like it. How fortunate,” she went on lazily, “that we really did get to know one another well in those days at Étaples! It saves one from all those twinges one feels about sudden friendships, for you know, after all, in a way, nothing at Étaples counted. You were just the most charming of my patients, and the most interesting, but still a patient. Here, you simply walk into my life and take me by storm. You make a very foolish woman of me. If I had to say to myself, 'Why, I have known him less than a week!' it would hurt my pride horribly.”
“Blessed little bit of shell that found a temporary shelter in my arm!” he exclaimed. “All the same, I feel just like you do. Out there, for all your graciousness, you were something sacred, something far away.”
“And here?” she whispered.
“Shall I tell you?” he asked, with a sudden fire in his eyes.
She thrust out her hands.
“For heaven's sake, no!” she begged. “I'm afraid to think—afraid of actual thoughts. Don't let us give form to anything. Let me be content to just feel this new warmth in my life.”
She leaned back in her chair with a contented sigh. A little tug came snorting up the river. Even the roar of the traffic over Waterloo Bridge seemed muffled and disintegrated by the breeze which swept on its way through the rustling lime trees.
“You are wonderfully situated here,” she went on. “I don't believe it is London at all. It rests me more than any place I have been in for a long time, and yet, at the same time, I think that it is going to make me sad.”
“'Sad?' But why?” he asked anxiously.
“Because it seems like one of the stopping-places—where one steps off to think, you know. I don't want to think. I have had nine such miserable years. You see, I thought Henry was different. I thought he only wanted a little understanding, a little kindness. I made a mistake.”
“Life is too wonderful a thing,” he insisted, “to lose the glory of it for one mistake.”
“I am on the rocks,” she sighed, “now and always. If I were made like your little luncheon friend, it might be different. I suppose I should spread my wings and settle down upon another planet. But I can't. I am differently made. I am not proud of it. I wish I weren't. It wouldn't all seem so hard then. I am still young, you know—really,” she added, with a note of rebellion in her tone.
“How young?”
“Thirty-one.”
“Nowadays, that is youth,” he declared confidently, “and youth means hope.”
“Sometimes,” she admitted, a little listlessly, “I have dared to feel hope. I have felt it more than ever since you came. I don't know why, but there it is.”
He turned his head and looked at her, appraisingly yet with reverence. No measure of despair could alter the fact that she was a very beautiful woman. She spoke the words of lifelessness; yet she possessed everything which men desire.
“The tragedy with you,” he pronounced, “is the absence of affection in your life.”
“Do you think that I haven't the power for caring?” she asked quietly.
“I think that you have had no one to care for,” he answered. “I think there has been no one to care for you in the way you wanted. But those days are over.”
For the first time, she showed some signs of that faint and growing uneasiness in his presence. She glanced at the clock and changed the subject abruptly.
“Do you know that I have been here all this time,” she reminded him, “and we have not said a word about our campaign.”
“There is a great deal connected with it, or, rather, my my side of it,” he declared, “which I shall never tell you.”
Illustration: “I don't recognize myself,” she murmured. “Is this what love brings. John?”
“You trust me?” she asked, a little timidly. “You don't think that I should betray you to my husband?”
He laughed the idea to scorn.
“It isn't that,” he assured her. “The machinery I have knocked into shape is crude in its way, but the lives and liberty of those underneath depend upon its workings.”
“It sounds mysterious,” she confessed.
He held out his hands.
“If you say that it is to be an alliance, Josephine,” he decided, “it shall be. I need your help enormously, but you must make up your mind to run a certain measure of risk.”
She smiled confidently.
“What risk is there for me to run?” she asked. “What measure of unhappiness could be crowded into my life which is not already there? I insist upon it, John, that you accept me as an ally without any more hesitation.”
He bent and kissed her hands.
“This, then, is final,” he said. “Within the next twenty-four hours, you will be ready if necessary?”
“I am ready now—any time—always,” she promised him.
XIV
“My dears,” Lady Amesbury said, as she stood surrounded by her guests on the hearth-rug of her drawing-room, “you know what my Sunday-night dinner-parties are—all sorts and plenty of them, and never a dull man or a plain woman if I can help it. To-night, I've got a new man. He's not much to look at, but they tell me he's a multimillionaire and making all the poor people of the country miserable. He's doing something about making bread dearer”
“Heavens! You don't mean Peter Phipps?” Sarah exclaimed.
“His very name!” her aunt declared. “How did you guess it, my dear? Here he is. Be quiet, all of you, and watch Grover announce him. He's such a snob—Grover. He hates a mister, anyhow, and 'Peter Phipps' will dislocate his tongue.”
Lady Amesbury was disappointed. Grover had marched with the times, and the presence of a millionaire made itself felt. His announcement was sonorous and respectful. Mr. Peter Phipps made his bow to his hostess under completely auspicious circumstances.
“So kind of you not to forget, Mr. Phipps,” she murmured. “My Sunday parties are always viva-voce invitations, and what between not remembering whom I've asked and not knowing whether those I've asked will remember, I generally find it horribly difficult to arrange the places. We are all right to-night, though. Only two missing. Who are they, Sarah?”
“Josephine and Mr. Wingate,” Sarah replied, with a covert glance at Phipps.
“Of course! And, thank goodness, here they are! Together, too! If there's anything I love, it's to start one of my dinners with a scandal. Josephine, did you bring Mr. Wingate, or did he bring you?”
Josephine laughed. Then she saw Phipps standing in the background, and she raised her voice a little.
“Mr. Wingate called for me,” she explained. “Taxis are so scarce in our part of the world on Sunday nights, and when one does happen to know a man who makes enough money on Friday to buy a fleet of motor-cars on Saturday'”
“My doing,” Kendrick put in. “I'm his broker.”
Just then, dinner was announced, and Lady Amesbury bustled once more into the midst of her guests.
“My dears,” she told them all, “I've forgotten who takes anybody down! Scrap along as you are, and you'll find the cards at your places down-stairs. Pick up anyone you like. Not you, sir,” she added, turning to Wingate. “You're going to take me. I want to hear all the latest New York gossip.”
Wingate found Josephine on his other side, and was happy. Phipps was just across the table. During the meal, his hostess proceeded to give the latter some of her attention.
“Mr. Phipps,” she said. “they tell me you've taken that scoundrel of a nephew of mine, Dredlinton, into your business, whatever it is. He won't do you any good, you know.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Phipps replied. “He seemed to me rather a brainy person for his order.”
“One for me,” Lady Amesbury chuckled. “I don't care. If I choose to come on the Stock Exchange, I've got brains enough to ruin most of you. But I don't. If you could keep Dredlinton out of mischief for a year, Mr. Phipps, I'd think you were the most wonderful man I ever met. He's a bad lot, but I tolerate him because I love his wife.”
Phipps scowled across the table to where Wingate's head was nearly touching Josephine's.
“Lady Dredlinton seems to be achieving great popularity in every direction,” he said sourly.
“And a jolly good thing, too,” Lady Amesbury declared. “If ever a woman earned the right to kick the traces away for a bit, Josephine has. Don't you mind anything I say, my dear,” she added as Josephine looked up at the sound of her name. “You settle down to a nice, comfortable flirtation if you want to. You owe it to yourself, all right, and then there's some coming to you. And I'm your husband's aunt who tells you that.”
“I'm not at all sure,” Phipps observed, “that you don't underrate your nephew's ability.”
“The only thing I know about his ability,” was the blunt reply, “is his ability to borrow a few hundreds from anyone fool enough to lend it to him, and then invent excuses for not paying it back. He's good at that, if you like. Still, don't let me set you against him, Mr. Phipps. Every shilling he gets out of you and your company is so much saved to the family.”
Lady Amesbury, who, notwithstanding her apparent inconsequence, had a keen eye for her guests, directed her conversation for a time into another channel, and finally changed places with Sarah in order to come into closer touch with a spiritualist from Sweden. Sarah turned appealingly toward Wingate.
“Jimmy and I want to be taken to the theater to-morrow night,” she announced. “He doesn't get any money till Wednesday, and I haven't earned enough this week to pay my garage bill.”
“I'll take you both,” Wingate promised quickly, “if Lady Dredlinton will make a fourth.”
“Delightful!” Josephine assented.
“I have a box at the opera,” Phipps announced, leaning forward. “Give me the pleasure of entertaining you all.”
Josephine shook her head.
“'Tannhäuser!' I am sorry, Mr. Phipps, but I couldn't possibly stand it. Ask us another time, won't you? To-morrow night,” she went on, turning to Wingate, “let us be absolutely frivolous. A revue, I think.”
“And dinner first at the Milan,” Wingate insisted.
“And supper afterward, and a dance at Ciro's,” Sarah put in. “I must tell Jimmy the glad tidings.”
Peter Phipps made his adieus to Lady Amesbury early, and drove in his electric coupé, first to Romano's, then to the Milan, and finally to Ciro's. Here he found Dredlinton, seated in a corner by himself, a little sulky at the dancing proclivities of the young lady whom he had brought. He greeted Phipps with some surprise.
“Hullo, Dreadnought!” he exclaimed. “Has the party broken up early or weren't you a success?”
“I wasn't a success,” Phipps confessed grimly. “Look here, Dredlinton: Have you ever wondered why I put you on the board of the B. & I.?”
Illustration: “I say, Sarah,” Jimmy exclaimed: “it's no use! There's a most infernal block down in the courtyard. We'll have to do a scoot”
“My title, I suppose—and social position.”
“Rot!” Phipps answered scornfully. “I put you on because of your wife.”
Dredlinton stared at him.
“Why, you didn't even know her!”
“Never mind. I knew her to look at. I wanted to know her. Now I do know her, and it hasn't done me much good.”
Dredlinton sat a little more erect in his place.
“Look here, Phipps,” he said: “I don't care about this conversation. If a man happens to admire another man's wife, her husband is hardly the proper confidant.”
“Oh, yes; I know your theory,” Phipps scoffed. “You're willing enough to hide your head in the sand and take the goods the gods send you. That doesn't suit me. I happen to need your help.”
“My help?” Dredlinton repeated. “You're not finding difficulties in the way of your suit, are you?”
“If I do, it will be the worse for you,” was the gruff reply. “As you're going on now, Dredlinton, it will be your wife, and your wife alone, who'll keep you out of jail before many weeks are past. How about that check to Farnham & Company last week? Farnhams say they never got it; but I hear it's come back through the bank with a queer endorsement upon it.”
Dredlinton caught at the table-cloth.
“I can't remember—anything here—without any books,” he muttered. There was a look of fear in his eyes. “Tell me what it is you want, Phipps? I am ready to do anything. You know that.”
“Your wife's friendship with this fellow Wingate must be nipped in the bud,” Phipps declared.
“Yes; but how?” Dredlinton demanded. “Josephine and I aren't anything to one another any more. You know that. She goes her own way.”
“She lives in your house,” Phipps said. “You remain her husband nominally, and you have, therefore, a certain amount of authority. You must forbid her to receive Wingate.”
“I'll forbid her, all right,” Dredlinton assented, “but I won't guarantee that she'll obey.”
“Then you must give orders to the servants,” Phipps insisted. “I don't need to suggest to you, Dredlinton,” he went on, “what means you should use to make your wife obey you, but there are means, and if you're not the man to realize them, I'm very much surprised in you. I will begin with a concrete case. Your wife, together with that fellow Wilshaw and Miss Baldwin, has accepted an invitation from Wingate to dine and go to a theater to-morrow night. You must see that your wife does not go.”
“Very well,” Dredlinton promised. “I'll manage it somehow.”
“See that you do,” Phipps enjoined earnestly. “Your wife is one of those misguided women with a strong sense of duty. Unless you behave like a fool, you can reestablish some measure of control over her. Do so. There are certain circumstances,” he went on, “under which I might be inclined to behave toward you with great generosity. I leave you to guess what those circumstances are. I will show you the way later on.”
Dredlinton felt hope stir once more through his shocked and terrified senses. He leaned a little back in his place and stared at his companion curiously.
“Phipps,” he asked, “what the devil do you and Wingate see in my wife?”
“What a man like you would never look for,” was the harsh reply.
XV
“Throw your coat down anywhere, Miss Baldwin,” Wingate invited, as he ushered that young lady into his rooms soon after eleven o'clock on the following evening. “Now, what can I give you? There are some sandwiches here—ham and pâté de foie gras, I think. Whisky and soda, or some hock?”
“A pâté sandwich and some plain soda-water, please,” Sarah replied, taking off the long motoring-coat which concealed her evening clothes. “I have been fined for everything except disorderly driving—daren't risk that. Thanks!” she went on. “What ripping sandwiches! And quite a good play, wasn't it?”
Illustration: Sarah sighed as her host arranged her cloak round her. “Sorry we couldn't have stayed a little longer,” she said. “Mr. Wingate was just getting most interesting”
“I am glad you enjoyed it.”
“It was a swindle Josephine not turning up,” Sarah continued, as she stretched herself out in Wingate's easy chair. “Domestic ructions again, I suppose. How I do hate that husband of hers!”
“It was disappointing,” he admitted.
There was a brief pause, during which Sarah finished her sandwiches.
“Wilshaw seems to be having a little trouble with the outside porter,” her host remarked presently.
“It must cost him at least half a sovereign every time I leave the cab,” Sarah sighed.
“How much do you make a week out of your driving, if it isn't too personal a question?” he inquired.
“It depends upon how much Jimmy's got.”
“Is he your only client, then?”
“He very seldom gives me a chance of another. Once or twice I've refused to be engaged by the day, but he sends his man round to the garage, and I find him sitting in the cab when I arrive.” Wingate laughed softly. She looked up at him with twinkling eyes. “I believe you're making fun of my profession,” she complained.
“Not at all; but I was wondering whether it wouldn't be cheaper for you to marry Jimmy, as you call him.”
“We have spoken about it once or twice,” she admitted. “The worst of it is, I don't think the cab would support two.”
“Is Wilshaw so badly off?”
“His money is tied up until he is twenty-eight,” Sarah explained. “I think that his father must have known how he was going to turn out. Jimmy promised that he would never anticipate it, and the dear old thing keeps his word. We shall be married on his twenty-eighth birthday, all right, unless his mother does the decent thing before.”
“Has she money?” Wingate asked.
“Plenty—but she hasn't much confidence in Jimmy. But perhaps his latest idea—he's going into the City to-morrow, you know—may bring her round. Mr. Wingate!”
“Well?”
“You're rather a dear old thing, you know,” she said, “although you're so serious.”
“And you're quite nice,” he admitted, “although you're such an incorrigible little flirt.”
“How do you know?” she laughed. “You never give me a chance of showing what I can do in that direction.”
“Too old, my dear young lady,” her host lamented, as he mixed himself a whisky and soda.
“Rubbish!” she scoffed. “Too much in love with some one, I believe.”
“These are too strenuous days for that sort of thing,” he rejoined, “except for children like you and Mr. Wilshaw.”
“I don't know so much about that,” she objected. “The world has never gone so queerly that people haven't remembered to go on loving and be made love to. Look at the war-marriages!”
“Yes; and the war-divorces,” he reminded her.
“Brute!” she exclaimed, with a little grimace.
“Why 'brute?'” he protested. “You can't deny them. Some of these marriages were genuine enough, of course. Others were simply the result of a sort of amorous hysteria. Affected everyone in those days, just like a germ.”
“Don't try to be cynical.”
“I'm not.”
“You are,” she persisted. “There isn't a man breathing who has a more wonderful capacity for caring than you. You hide your feelings from most people. Are you very angry with me for having guessed? I have, you know?
Wingate paused in the act of lighting a cigarette.
“What's that?”
“I think I have a sort of second sight in such matters, especially as regards people in whom I am interested,” Sarah continued, “and if there is one woman in this world whom I really adore, and for whom I am heartily sorry, it is Josephine Dredlinton.”
“She has a rotten time,” was Wingate's terse comment.
“Very few people know how rotten,” Sarah said. “She has lost nearly all her own relations in the war. Her husband has spent the greater part of her fortune, flaunted his affairs with various actresses in the face of all London, shilly-shallied through the war as a recruiting officer, or any odd job that kept him safely at home, and now he openly associates with a little company of men in the City who are out to make money any old way they can get hold of it. If I were a man,” she went on, laying her he upon his, “I wouldn't let Josephine live out these best days of her life in sorrow. Do you know what I'd do, Mr. Wingate?”
“What would you do?” he asked.
“I'd take her away. I wouldn't care about anybody else or anything. If the world didn't approve, I'd make a little world of my own and put her in it. You're quite strong enough.”
He looked through the walls of the room for a minute.
“Yes; I am strong enough,” he agreed. “But is she?”
“Why do you doubt her?” Sarah demanded. “What has she in her present life to lose, compared with what she gains from you—what she wants more than anything else in the world—love?”
He made no answer. The girl's words had thrilled him. Then the door swung open and Jimmy appeared, very pink and white, very immaculate, and looking rather more helpless than usual.
“I say, Sarah,” Jimmy exclaimed; “it's no use! There's a most infernal block down in the courtyard. Chap wanted me to push the taxi out into the street. It's cost me all the loose change I've got to stop his sending for a policeman. We'll have to do a scoot.”
Sarah sighed as her host arranged her cloak round her.
“Sorry we couldn't have stayed a little longer,” she said. “Mr. Wingate was just getting most interesting.”
“You'll have a drink before you go, Wilshaw?” Wingate insisted. “Say when.”
The young man accepted the whisky and soda and promptly disposed of it.
“Thanks, old chap! Frightfully sorry to rush away like this!”
“Good-night, Mr. Wingate,” Sarah said, holding out her hand, “and thanks ever so much for the evening. You don't think I'm a very forward little minx, do you?”
“I think you are a sensible little dear,” he assured her, “far too good for Jimmy.”
“Sorry I accepted your hospitality, if that's how you're feeling,” Jimmy grunted. “By the bye, you have a few cigarettes, have you, for me to smoke while Sarah tries to get me safely home?”
Wingate held out the box.
“Fill your case,” he invited; “your pockets, too, if you like. Don't forget, both of you, luncheon at one-thirty to-morrow in the restaurant. Good-night.”
He stood with the door open, watching them down the corridor. Then he came slowly back into his room. Once more the telephone-bell began to ring. He picked up the receiver. Something amazing crept into his face.
“Who? ... Lady Dredlinton!” he exclaimed. “But where are you? ... Down-stairs? ... Yes! Yes! Why, of course. Here? You mean that you are coming here—up to my room? ... I don't quite understand.... Yes; of course.... One moment, please. Come up by the east lift unless you want to meet Sarah Baldwin and Wilshaw. They have this moment left me. The hall-porter will show you.”
Wingate laid down the receiver, glanced for a moment at the clock, hurried to the door, pushed back and secured the latch. Then he came back into the room and stood listening.
XVI
In the end, she came quite suddenly. The door had opened and closed before he heard even the swish of her skirts. She stood there looking at him a little plaintively, a little appealingly. She was dressed in dark traveling clothes, and she carried a heavy dressing-case in her hand. He sprang forward and took it from her.
“My dear friend,” she exclaimed, with an attempt at levity, “don't look so tragic! There is a very simple explanation of this extraordinary visit, as you will soon find.”
“It needs no explanation,” he declared.
“Oh, yes, it does, of course,” she continued. “I simply want you to intercede with the authorities here, so that I do not have to go and stand at that terrible counter. There is a Continental train just in, and the place is crowded.”
“You wish to stay here for the night?”
Mayn't I? I must stay somewhere.”
There is some trouble?” he asked.
“There is always trouble,” she replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. “To-night seems to me as though it may be the climax. You won't be horrified if I sit down and smoke one of your cigarettes? And may I remind you that your attitude is not entirely hospitable?”
Wingate had recovered from his first stupor. He was filled with the sense of wonderful happenings.
“Oh, I'll be as hospitable as you like,” he assured her. “You sha'n't have any cause to reproach me so far as that is concerned. This easy chair, please. It is by far the most comfortable one. And now some cushions,” he added, slipping them behind her. “The cigarettes are here, and I have some excellent hock. Just half a glass? Good! Miss Baldwin has been praising my sandwiches. You'll have one, won't you?”
She sighed with content, almost with happiness. The strained look had gone from her face. She took off her hat, and he laid it upon the table.
“You are very good—very kind indeed,” she murmured.
“And yet not so kind as I would like to be.”
He came and stood by her side. She was eating one of the sandwiches and had already tasted the wine. Somehow, he knew quite well that she had had no dinner.
“I want you to understand,” he began, “that you are free to tell me what has happened to-night or not—just as you please. Don't feel obliged to explain. I'll be quite frank. I am a curious person as regards you. I want to know—everything. I should like to know how it was that you were unable to come to dinner or join us at the theater to-night. I should like to know what has brought you out of your house to a hotel at midnight. But don't tell me unless you want to.”
“I do want to,” she assured him. “I want to tell you everything. I think—somehow I almost feel that you have the right to know.”
“Cultivate that feeling,” he begged her. “I like it.”
She smiled, a wan little smile that passed very soon.
“I dare say you can guess,” she began presently, “something of what my daily life is like when my husband is in town. Its little less than torture, especially since he became mixed up with Mr. Phipps, that horrible person, Martin, and their friends.”
“Abominable!” Wingate muttered.
“He is all the while trying to induce me to receive their women friends,” she continued. “I need not tell you that I have refused, as I always should refuse.”
“Naturally!”
“To-night, however,” she went on, “he has surpassed himself. First of all, he telephoned to say that he was bringing home friends for dinner, and if I had any other engagement, he requested me to cancel it. As you know, I did so. Notwithstanding his message, he did not arrive at the house until eleven o'clock, barely an hour ago.”
“And kept you waiting all that time?”
“That is nothing. Let me explain something before I conclude. Before the war, I had an Austrian maid, a woman whom I turned out of the house, and whom my husband at that time did not dare ask me to reinstate. He had not then spent quite the whole of my fortune. Besides an undoubted intrigue with my husband, I heard afterward that she only escaped imprisonment as a spy by leaving the country hurriedly just before war was declared. To-night, my husband, having kept me waiting three hours while he dined with her in Soho, brought her back to the house, announcing that he had engaged her as his secretary. Naturally,” she continued, “I declined to sleep under the same roof. The woman remained—and here am I.”
“You are here,” he repeated. “Thank God for that!”
“It was perhaps imprudent of me,” she sighed, “to choose this hotel, but I had a curious feeling of weakness. I felt that I must see some one to whom I could tell what had happened—some friend—before I slept. So I came to you. Did I do wrong?”
“The wrong would be if ever you left me,” he declared passionately.
“Dear friend!” She patted his hand.
“The room, I will arrange for in a minute or two,” he promised. “That is quite easy. But to-morrow—what then?”
“I shall telephone home,” she replied. “If that woman is still in the house, I shall go down into the country, and from there I shall write my lawyers and apply for a separation.”
“I can suggest something a thousand times better.”
She hesitated for a moment. A woman of curiously strong virginal instincts, she realized, perhaps for the first time, the approach of a great change in his attitude toward her. Yet she could not keep from her lips the words which must bring his avowal.
“What do you mean?” she faltered.
“That you end it all,” he advised firmly; “that you do not return to your husband.”
“Not return?'”
“That you come to me,” he went on, bending over the side of her chair. “Needless, wonderful words; but I love you! You were the first woman in my life. You shall be the last. I have been silent, as you know. I have waited for something like this, and I think the time has come.”
“The time can never come!” she cried despairingly.
“The time has come, at last, for me to tell you that I love you more than any woman on earth,” he declared, “that I want to take care of you, to take you into my life, to build a wall of passionate devotion round you, to keep you free from every trouble and every harm.”
“Ah, dear friend, if it were but possible!” she murmured, holding his hands tightly.
“But it is possible,” he insisted. “All that we need is courage. You owe nothing to your husband. You can leave him without remorse or a moment's shame. I want you, Josephine. God knows how I want you!”
“You have my friendship—even my love. There—I have said it! My love,” she repeated, with a little sob.
His arms were suddenly round her. She shrank back in her chair. Her terrified eyes invited and yet reproached him.
“Remember—oh, please remember!” she cried.
“What can I remember except one thing?” he whispered.
She held him away from her.
“You talk as though everything were possible between us. How can that be? I have no joy in my husband, nor he in me, but I am married. We are not in America.”
He rose to his feet, a strong man trembling in every limb.
“Let me tell you,” he began, “why our divorce laws are so different from yours. We believe that the worst breach of the Seventh Commandment is the sin of an unloving kiss, the unwillingly given arms of a shuddering wife striving to keep the canons of the prayer-book and besmirching thereby her life with evil.”
“If you and I were alone in the world!”
“If you are thinking of your friends,” he pleaded, “they are more likely to be proud of the woman who had the courage to break away from a debasing union. Everyone realizes what your husband is. He has been unfaithful, not only to you but to every friend he has ever had.”
“Do I not know it?” she moaned. “Isn't the pain of it there in my heart, hour by hour?”
His reasonableness was deserting him. Again he was the lover, begging for his rights.
“Wipe him out of your mind, sweetheart,” he begged. “I'll buy you from him if you like, or fight him for you, or steal you—anything sooner than let you go.”
“I don't want to go,” she confessed, afraid of her own words.
“You never shall,” he continued, his voice gaining strength with his rising hopes. “You've opened my lips, and you must hear what is in my heart. You are the one love of my life. My hours and days are empty. I want you as I have wanted nothing else in life—not only for my own sake, for yours. I want to chase all those lines of sorrow away from your face.”
“My poor, tired face!” she faltered.
“'Tired?'” he repeated. “It's the most beautiful face on earth.”
The smile which suddenly transformed her quivering mouth made it seem so.
“You are so foolish, dear; but go on,” she pleaded.
“I want to see you grow younger and lighter-hearted. I want you to feel what real love is—tender, passionate, lover's love.”
“My dear, my dear!” she cried. “I do not dare to think of these things; yet they sound so wonderful!”
“Leave the daring to me, sweetheart,” he answered. “You shall have nothing to do but rest after these horrible days—rest and care for me a little.”
“Oh, I do care!” she exclaimed, with sudden passion. “That is what makes it all so wonderful.”
“You love me? Tell me so once more!” he begged.
“Dear, I love you. You must have known it, or you couldn't have said these things. And I thought I was going to die without knowing what love was.”
“Never fear that again!” he cried joyfully. “You shall know what it is every hour of the day!”
Her eyes shone. The years had fallen away. She rose tremblingly to her feet. Her arms stole round his neck.
“John, you dear, wonderful lover,” she whispered, “why, it has come already! I am forgetting everything. I am happy!”
The clock on Wingate's mantelpiece struck one. He drew himself gently away from the marvel of those softly entwining arms, stooped, and kissed Josephine's fingers reverently.
“Dear,” he said, “let me begin to take up my new responsibilities. We must arrange for your stay here.”
She laughed happily, rose, and, with a woman's instinct, stood before the mirror, patting her hair.
“I don't recognize myself,” she murmured. “Is this what love brings, John?”
He stood for a moment by her side.
“'Love?'” he repeated. “Why, you haven't begun yet to realize what it means—what it will bring to you.”
Once more she set her hands upon his shoulders. Her eyes drooped for a moment.
“Dear,” she begged, “you won't ever be sorry will you, and—does this sound selfish, I wonder—you wont mind waiting?”
“I shall never be sorry,” he declared firmly. “And I think that, with hope, I can hold out a little longer.”
He went over to the telephone and spoke for a few moments. Then he laid down the receiver and returned.
“A boy is bringing up the key of your room at once,” he announced. “You will be in the south block, a long way away, but the rooms there are comfortable.”
“Thank you, John dear,” she said.
“Just one thing more,” he continued. “I want you to remember that this miserable, tangled skein of unhappiness which you have called life is finished and done with. From to-night, you belong to me. I must see you sometime to-morrow—if possible at Dredlinton House—and we can make some plans then. But you are to worry about nothing. Remember that I am here, and I love you. Good-night!”
Once more she rested for a moment in his arms. The seconds sped by. Then he took a quick step backward. They both stared at the door. It was closed now, but the slam of it, a moment before, had sounded like a pistol-shot.
“Who was that?” she asked, in a terrified whisper.
“That idiot of a boy with the key, I expect,” he replied. “Wait, dear.”
He hurried outside, through the little hall and into the corridor. There was no one in sight. He listened for a moment and then returned.
“Who was it?” she repeated.
“Nobody.”
“But some one must have looked in.”
“It may have been the outside door,” he suggested.
She shook her head.
“I closed it behind me.”
“You mustn't worry, dear,” he insisted. “In all probability, some one did look into the room by mistake, but it is very doubtful whether they would know who we were. It may have been Sparks, my man, or the night valet, seeing a light here. Remember what I told you a few minutes ago—there is no trouble now which shall come near you.”
She smiled, already reassured. . “Of course, I am rather absurd,” she the said, “but, then, look at me! It is past one o'clock, and here am I in your rooms, with that terrible dressing-case on the table, and without a hat, and still looking, I am afraid,” she concluded, with a final glance into the glass, “a little tumbled.”
There was a knock at the door. A page entered, swinging a key in his hand.
“Key for the lady, sir,” he announced.
Wingate nodded.
“Quite right, my boy. Listen: Did you meet anyone in the corridor?”
“No one, sir.”
“You haven't been in here before without knocking, have you?”
“No, sir,” was the prompt reply, “I came straight up in the lift.”
Wingate turned to Josephine with a little shrug of the shoulders.
“The mystery, then, is insoluble,” he declared cheerfully, “but remember this, sweetheart,” he added, as the boy stepped discreetly outside: “in small things as well as large, the troubles of this world for you are ended.”
“You don't know how wonderful it sounds to hear words like that,” she sighed, as they stood hand in hand. “I sha'n't seem very selfish, John, shall I, if I ask for a little time to realize all this? I feel that everything I have and am ought to be yours at this moment, because you have made me so happy, because my heart is so full of gratitude. But—alas—I have my weaknesses. I am a very proud woman. Sometimes I am afraid I have been a little censorious—as regards others.”
He stooped and kissed her fingers.
“If you knew what it felt like,” he whispered, as he held open the door for her, “to have something to wait for!”
XVI
Peter Phipps, in his private office, might have served as the very prototype of a genial, shrewd, and successful business man. The room was plainly and handsomely furnished. The documents which cumbered his desk were arranged in little methodical heaps. His manager stood by to his side, with a long slip of paper in his hand. The two men had been studying it together.
“A very excellently prepared document, Harrison,” his employer declared graciously. “Capitally prepared and lucid. A good many million bushels, that. We are creeping up, Harrison.”
Mr. Harrison bowed in recognition of his master's words of commendation. He was a worn-looking, negative person, with a waxlike complexion, a furtive manner.
“The totals are enormous, sir,” he admitted, “and you may take it that they are absolutely correct. They represent our holdings as revised after the receipt of this morning's mail. I should like to point out, too, sir, that they have increased out of all proportion to outside shipments during the last four days.”
Phipps touched the Times forefinger.
“Did you notice, Harrison,” he asked, “that our shares touched a hundred and eighty yesterday on the Street?”
“I was advised of it, sir.”
“My fellow directors and I,” Phipps continued, “are highly gratified with the services of our staff during this period of stress. You might let them know that in the counting-house. We shall shortly take some opportunity of showing our appreciation.”
“You are very kind indeed, sir,” the manager acknowledged, without change of countenance. “I am sorry to have to report that Mr. Roberts wishes to leave us.”
“'Roberts!' One of our best buyers!” Phipps exclaimed. “Dear me: how's that? Is it a matter of salary?”
“I am afraid not, sir.”
“What then?”
“Mr. Roberts has leanings toward socialism, sir. He seems to think that the energies of our company tend to increase the distress which exists in the North.”
The great man leaned back in his chair.
“God bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “What on earth has that to do with Roberts? He isn't the conscience of the firm. He draws a matter of a thousand a year for doing as he is told.”
“I tried to argue with him on these lines, sir,” Harrison replied. “I am sorry to say I found him obdurate.”
Phipps shrugged his shoulders.
“He can be replaced, I suppose?”
“With some difficulty, sir,” Harrison felt compelled to admit. “There is, as I dare say you are aware, sir, a certain feeling against us in the various exchanges. The best men are warned against accepting employment with us.”
The chairman of the B. & I. sighed.
“We will pursue the subject later, Harrison,” he said. “In the mean time, do your best to fill Roberts' place adequately.”
“Very good, sir.”
Dredlinton lounged into the office a few minutes later. Phipps welcomed him without any particular enthusiasm.
“It happens that you are just the man I want to see,” he declared. “Sit down.”
Drediinton sank a little wearily into an easy chair.
“Why do you want to see me?”
“What happened last night?” Phipps asked, a little abruptly.
“I obeyed orders,'” Dredlinton told him. “I told her ladyship that I should be home to dinner and probably bring some friends. I was a little late, but she waited.”
Phipps smiled maliciously.
“She didn't dine with Wingate, then, or go to the theater?”
“She did not,” Dredlinton replied. “I put the kibosh on it, according to orders.”
Peter Phipps handed a cigar across the desk to his companion.
“Try this before you enter upon the labors of the day,” he invited, “and just see what you think of these figures.”
Dredlinton glanced at the papers carelessly at first and then with genuine interest.
“Marvelous!” he exclaimed.
“Marvelous indeed,” his chief assented. “Now listen to me, Dredlinton: Why are you sitting there, looking like a whipped dog? Why can't you wear a more cheerful face? If it's Farnham's check you are worrying about, here it is,” he added, drawing an oblong slip of paper from the pigeonhole of his desk, tearing it in two, and throwing it into the waste-paper basket. “A year ago, you told me that the one thing in the world you needed was money. Well, aren't you getting it? You have only to run straight with us here, and to work in my interests in another quarter that you know of, and your fortune is made. Cheer up—and look as though you realized it.”
Dredlinton crossed and uncrossed his legs nervously. His eyes were bloodshot and his eyelids puffy.
“I am nervous this morning, Phipps,” he confided. “Had a bad night. Everyone I've come across, too, lately seems to be cursing the B. & I.”
“Let them curse,” was the equable reply. “We can afford to hear a few harsh words when we are making money on such a scale.”
“Yes; but how long is it going to last?” Dredlinton asked fretfully. He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it across the table. “Read that,” he invited. “It's the fifth I've had within the last two days.”
Phipps glanced at the beginning and the end and threw it carelessly back.
“Pooh! A threatening letter!” he exclaimed. “Why, I had a dozen of those this morning.”
“That one of mine seems pretty definite, doesn't it?” Dredlinton remarked nervously.
“Some of mine were uncommonly plain-spoken,” Phipps acknowledged, “but what's the odds? You're not a coward, Dredlinton; neither am I. Neither is Skinflint Martin, nor Stanley. Chuck letters like that on the fire, as they have, and keep cheerful. The streets of London are the safest place in the world. No cable from your friend in New York yet?”
“Not a word,” Dredlinton answered. “I expected it last night. You haven't forgotten that Wingate's due here this morning—that is, if he keeps his appointment?”
“Forgotten it? Not likely!” Phipps replied. “I was going to talk to you about that. We must have those shares. The fact of it is the Monarch Line has played us false, the only shipping company which has. They promised to advise us of all proposed wheat cargoes, and they haven't kept their word. If any information is correct, and I expect confirmation of it at moment in the cable I arranged to have sent to you, they have eleven steamers being loaded this very week. It's a last effort on the part of the Liverpool ring to break us.”
“What'll happen if Wingate won't sell?”
“I never face disagreeable possibilities before the necessity arrives,” was the calm reply. “Wingate is certain to sell. He won't have an idea why we want to buy, and I shall give him twenty thousand pounds profit.”
Dredlinton knocked the ash from his cigar.
“Look here, Phipps,” he said: “You can never reckon exactly on what a fellow like Wingate will do or what he won't do. It is just possible I may be able to help in this matter.”
“Good man!” the other exclaimed. “How?”
Dredlinton hesitated for a moment. There was an ugly smile upon his lips.
“Let us put it in this way,” he said: “Supposing you fail altogether with Wingate?”
“Well?”
“Supposing you then pass him on to me, and I succeed in getting him to sell the shares? What about it?”
“It will be worth a thousand pounds to you,” Phipps declared.
“Two?”
Phipps shrugged his shoulders.
“I don't bargain,” he said, “but two let it be—that is, of course, on condition that I have previously failed.”
Dredlinton's dull eyes glittered.
“I shall do my best,” he promised.
There was a knock at the door. A clerk presented himself.
“Mr. Wingate is here to see you, sir,” he announced.
“You may show him in,” Peter Phipps directed.
XVIII
Phipps received his visitor with a genial smile and an outstretched hand.
“Delighted to see you, Mr. Wingate,” he said heartily. “Take a chair, please, I do not know whether you smoke in the mornings, but these Cabañas,” he added, opening a box, “are very mild.”
Wingate refused both the chair and the cigars, and appeared not to notice the outstretched hand.
“You will forgive my reminding you, Mr. Phipps,” he remarked dryly, “that my visit this morning is not one of good will, I should not be here at all except for Lord Dredlinton's assurance that the business on which you desired to see me has nothing whatever to do with the British & Imperial Granaries.”
“Nothing in the world, Mr. Wingate,” was the prompt declaration. “We would very much rather receive you here as a friend, but we will, if you choose, respect your prejudices and come to the point at once.”
“In one moment.”
“You have something to say first?”
“I have,” Wingate replied gravely. “I should not willingly have sought you out. I do not, as a matter of fact, consider that any director of the British & Imperial Granaries deserves even a word of warning. But since I am here, I am going to offer it.”
“Of warning?” Dredlinton muttered, glancing up nervously.
“Precisely,” Wingate assented. “You, Mr. Phipps, and Lord Dredlinton and your fellow directors have inaugurated and are carrying on a business, or enterprise, whichever you choose to call it, founded upon an utterly immoral and brutal basis. I have spent a considerable portion of my time since I arrived in England, studying the matter, and this is the conclusion at which I have come.”
“My dear Mr. Wingate, one moment,” Phipps intervened. “The magnitude of our operations in wheat has been immensely exaggerated. We are not abnormally large holders. There are a dozen firms in the market buying.”
“Those dozen firms,” was the swift reply, “are agents of yours.
“That is a statement which you cannot possibly substantiate,” Phipps declared irritably. “It is simply Stock Exchange gossip.”
“For once, then,” Wingate went on, “Stock Exchange gossip is the truth. I am here to warn you—both of you,” he added, including Lord Dredlinton with a sweep of his hand, “directors of the British & Imperial Granaries, that unless you release and compel your agents to release such stocks of wheat as will bring bread down to a reasonable price, you stand in personal danger. Is that clear enough?”
“You are misled as to your facts, Mr. Wingate,” Phipps expostulated. “I can assure you that we are conducting a perfectly legitimate undertaking. We have kept all the time well within the law.”
“You may be within the law of the moment,” was the stern reply, “but morally you are worse than the most outrageous bucket-shop keepers of Wall Street. Legislation may be slow and Parliament hampered by precedent, but the people have never wanted champions when they have a righteous cause. I tell you that you cannot carry this thing through. Better disgorge your profits and sell while you have a chance.”
Phipps did his best for peace. This was his enemy with whom he was now face to face, but the final issue was not yet. He spoke suavely and persuasively.
“Come, come,” he said; “I am an Englishman, and it is not my desire to add to the sufferings of my fellow countrymen.”
“You don't care a damn about any one's sufferings,” Wingate retorted, “so long as you can make money out of them. I have delivered my warning; I am only sorry that you will not take me more seriously. I am now at your service.”
“In plain words, then, I want to purchase your holding in the Monarch Steamship Company, a holding amounting, I am told, to one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. An Asiatic power has offered me an immense commission if I can arrange the sale to them of the Atlantic fleet of the Monarch Line.”
“For what purpose?”
“Trading between Japan and China,” Phipps explained. “The quickest way of bringing about the sale and earning my commission is for me to acquire a controlling interest in the company. I have already a certain number of shares. The possession of yours will give me control. The shares to-day stand at a dollar and an eighth. That would make your holding, Mr. Wingate, worth, say, one million, four hundred thousand dollars. I am going to offer you a premium on the top of that, say one million, six hundred thousand dollars at to-day's rate of exchange.”
Wingate reflected.
“A very fair offer, Mr. Phipps, I have no doubt,” he said, at last. “On the other hand, I am not a seller.”
“Not a seller?? Not at a quarter premium?”
“Nor a half,” Wingate replied, “nor, as a matter of fact, a hundred-per-cent. premium. You see, I don't trust you, Phipps. You may have told me the truth. You may not. I shall hold my stock for the present.”
“Mr. Wingate,” Phipps exclaimed incredulously, “you astonish me!”
“Very likely,” was the unconcerned reply, “I won't say that I may not change my mind a little later on, if you are still a buyer. Before I did anything, however, I should have a few inquiries to make. If this concludes our business”
Dredlinton waved a nervous hand toward him.
“One moment, please,” he begged. “I have just a few words to say to Mr. Wingate.”
The latter glanced at the clock.
“I hope you will say them as quickly as possible,” he enjoined. “I have a busy morning.”
Dredlinton leaned over Phipps' chair.
“Leave me alone with him for a moment,” he suggested. “Perhaps I may be able to earn that two thousand pounds.”
Phipps rose at once from his chair and made his way toward the door.
“Lord Dredlinton wishes to have a word with you, Mr. Wingate,” he said. “I shall be on the premises in case you should decide to change your mind.”
XIX
Dredlinton sank into Phipps' vacated chair and leaned back, with his hands in his trousers pockets.
“So you don't want to sell those shares, Mr. Wingate?”
“I have decided not to.”
“Any particular reason?”
“None,” Wingate acknowledged, “except that I am not very anxious to have any business relations with Mr. Phipps.”
“And for the sake of that prejudice,” Dredlinton observed, “you can afford to refuse such a profit as he offered you?”
“I have other reasons for not wishing to sell,” Wingate declared. “I have a very high opinion of Mr. Phipps' judgment as a business man. If the stock is worth as much as that to him, it is probably worth the same amount for me to keep.”
Lord Dredlinton glanced for a moment at his finger-nails. He seemed wrapped in abstract thought.
“I wonder if I could induce you to change your mind,” he said.
“I am quite sure that you could not.”
“Still, I am going to try. You are a great admirer of my wife, I believe, Mr. Wingate?”
Wingate frowned slightly.
“I prefer not to discuss Lady Dredlinton with you,” he said curtly.
“Still, you can't mind going so far as to say that you are an admirer of hers?” the latter persisted.
“Well?”
“You are probably her confidant in the unfortunate differences which have arisen between us?”
“If I were, I should not consider it my business to inform you.”
“Your sympathy is without doubt on her side?”
Wingate changed his attitude.
“Look here,” he said: “This subject is not of my choosing. I should have preferred to avoid it. Since you press me, however, I haven't the faintest hesitation in saying that I look upon your wife as one of the sweetest and best women I ever knew, married, unfortunately, to a person utterly unworthy of her.”
Dredlinton started in his place. A little streak of color flushed up to his eyes.
“What the devil do you mean by that?”
“Look here,” Wingate expostulated: “You can't threaten me, Dredlinton. You asked for what you got. Why not save time and explain why you have dragged your wife's name into this business?”
Dredlinton, in his peculiar way, was angry. His speech was a little broken; his eyes glittered.
“Explain! My God, I will! You are one of those damned frauds, Wingate who pose as a purist and make capital out of the harmless differences which sometimes arise between husband and wife. You sympathize with Lady Dredlinton, eh?”
“I should sympathize with any woman who was your wife,” Wingate assured him, his own temper rising.
Dredlinton leaned a little forward. He spoke with vicious distinctness.
“You sympathize with her to such an extent that you lure her to your rooms at midnight, and send her back when you've”
Dredlinton's courage oozed out before he had finished his speech. Wingate had swung round toward his companion, and there was something terrifying in his attitude.
“You scoundrel!” he exclaimed.
Dredlinton drew a little further back and kept his finger upon the bell.
“Look here,” he said viciously: “You may as well drop those heroics. I am not talking at random. My wife was seen in your arms, in your rooms at the Milan Court, with her dressing-case on the table last night, by little Flossie Lane, your latest conquest in the musical-comedy world. She spent the night at the Milan”
“It's a lie!” Wingate declared, with cold fury. “How the devil could Flossie Lane see anything of the sort? She was nowhere near my rooms.”
“Oh, yes, she was,” Dredlinton assured him. “She just looked in—one look was quite enough. Didn't you hear the door slam?”
“My God!” Wingate muttered, with a sudden instinct of recollection.
“Perhaps you wonder why she came?” the other continued. “I will tell you. I followed my wife to the Milan—I thought it might be worth while. I saw her enter the lift and come up to your room. While I was hesitating as to what to do, I met Flossie. Devilish clever idea of mine! I determined to kill two birds with one stone. I told her you'd been inquiring for her—that you were alone in your rooms and would like to see her. She went up like a two-year-old. Jove, you ought to have seen her face when she came down!”
“You cad!” Wingate exclaimed. “Your wife simply came to beg my intervention with the management to secure her a room in the”
“Chuck it!” Dredlinton interrupted. “You're a man of the world. You know that I can get a divorce, and I'm going to have it—if I want it. I am meeting Flossie at midday at my solicitor's. What have you got to say about that?”
“That if you keep your word, it will be a very happy release for your wife” Wingate replied dryly.
Dredlinton leaned across the desk.
“You are a fool,” he said. “My wife wants to get rid of me—you and she have talked that over, I have no doubt, but not this way. She is a proud woman, Wingate. The one desire of her life is to be free, but you can take this from me: If I bring my suit and gain my decree on the evidence I shall put before the court—don't forget Flossie Lane, will you?—she'll never raise her head again. That is what I am going to do, unless”
He paused.
“Unless what?” Wingate demanded.
“Unless you sell those shares to Peter Phipps.”
Wingate was silent for a few moments.
“Dredlinton,” he said, at last, “I did you an injustice.”
“I am glad that you are beginning to appreciate the fact,” the other replied.
“I looked upon you,” Wingate continued, “as only an ordinary, weak sort of scoundrel. I find you one of the filthiest blackguards who ever crawled upon the earth.”
Dredlinton scowled for a moment and then laughed.
“I can't lose my temper with you, Wingate—upon my word, I can't. You are so delightfully crude and refreshing. Shall I draft a little agreement that you will sell the shares to Phipps? Just a line or two will be sufficient.”
Wingate made no reply. He walked across to the frosted window and gazed out of the upper panes up to the sky. Presently he returned.
“Where is your wife?” he asked.
“She telephoned from the Milan this morning, discovered that the young lady to whom she had such unfounded objections had left, and returned in a taxi just before I started for the office.”
“Supposing I sell these shares?”
“Then,” Dredlinton promised, “I shall endeavor to forget the incident of last night. Further than that, I might indeed be tempted, if it were made worth my while, to provide my wife with a more honorable mode of escape.”
“You're wonderful!” Wingate declared, nodding his head quickly. “What are you going to get for blackmailing me into selling those shares?”
“Two thousand pounds.”
“Get along and earn it, then.”
Dredlinton wrote in silence for several moments. Then he read the document over to himself. He touched the bell. Phipps entered almost at the same moment.
“I am pleased to tell you,” Dredlinton announced, “that I have induced Mr. Wingate to see reason. He will sell the shares.”
“My congratulations!” Phipps ventured, with a broad smile, “Mr. Wingate has made a most wise and acceptable decision.
“Will you make out a check for ten thousand pounds as a deposit?” Dredlinton continued. “Mr. Wingate will then sign the agreement I have drawn up on the lines of the memorandum you left on the desk.”
“With pleasure,” was the brisk reply.
Wingate took up a pen, glanced through the agreement, and was on the point of signing his name when a startled exclamation from the man at his side caused him to glance up. The door had been opened. Harrison was standing there, looking a little worried. His tone was almost apologetic.
“The Countess of Dredlinton,” he announced.
How will Wingate extricate Josephine and himself? His extraordinary scheme leads up to a climax in the next—and last—instalment of 'The Profiteers', in February Cosmopolitan, that will grip everyone—and that puts the lives of these live people in the greatest jeopardy. Mr. Oppenheim has never written a faster-moving story.