CHAPTER I

It was not generally known among his acquaintances that Marston Loring had come back from Africa accompanied by a new friend; this new friend was not introduced by Loring at either of his clubs, and yet the two met at least once every day. He was a man named Alfred Ramsay; a small, insignificant-looking man, with sandy hair, which had turned—in streaks—the peculiar grey which such hair assumes, and small, dull eyes that never seemed to move in his head.

It was nearly three o’clock on the afternoon following that on which Loring had called on Mrs. Romayne, and he and his new friend were together in his chambers in the Temple. Mr. Ramsay had been there several times before, and he was sitting now in an arm-chair in the sunshine with an air{2} of total want of interest in his surroundings, which was characteristic of him. Loring was walking up and down the room thoughtfully.

“Romayne!” observed Ramsay. “Not a particularly good name on the market! It belonged to a first-class swindler twenty years ago—William Romayne. This young gentleman is no connexion, I suppose?”

The remark broke a short silence, and Loring stopped in his walk and leant back against the mantelpiece as he answered.

“Yes,” he said tersely, “he’s his son. He has never been in his father’s line, though—I doubt whether he knows anything about him, though it’s an odd thing that he shouldn’t! As to the name, why, it’s an old story, and won’t affect any one nowadays, I take it. The point is that he has this respectable capital, and is—exceedingly keen on increasing it.”

There was a dryness in Loring’s voice as he said the last words, which implied a great deal more than did his words. And it was apparently to that significance that the other man replied.

{3}

“A chip of the old block,” said Ramsay musingly. “I wonder, now, how far it goes?”

The last words were spoken very slowly, and the dull eyes looked straight before them.

Loring looked down at him with a cynical smile just touching his lips. He knew considerably more about his new friend’s character than he would have chosen to put into words, and he could guess, not inaccurately, what was passing in his mind at the moment. And the realisation of the shadowy possibilities with which Ramsay was occupied was no part of Marston Loring’s designs. He made no direct answer.

“He should be here by this time,” he said carelessly.

And as he spoke there was a sharp, cheery rap at the door; it opened quickly, and Julian Romayne appeared, very boyish, very good-looking, and with a curious, veiled keenness in his eyes.

“We were just expecting you,” said Loring, greeting him with a friendly nod. “Let me introduce you to Mr. Alfred Ramsay.”

Mr. Alfred Ramsay had risen to honour the introduction, turning his whole head{4} slowly round as he looked at Julian, so that his eyes still gazed straight before them as they rested on the young man’s face.

“Pleased to know you,” he said indifferently.

“Very glad to make your acquaintance,” responded Julian pleasantly. “I hope I’m not behind time?”

“Pretty fair,” said Loring, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder with kindly patronage. “But Ramsay is a busy man, you know, so suppose we get to business at once. Ramsay,” he continued, in a brisk, businesslike voice, as the three sat down about the table, “Romayne knows nothing of the affair whatever. I shall begin by running over the preliminaries with him. And, first of all,” he went on, turning to Julian, “of course it is understood, Romayne, that we keep the matter to ourselves.”

He spoke in a curt, off-hand manner, and as Julian made a quick gesture of acquiescence, he went on in the same businesslike tone.

“I don’t know whether you know anything about the Welcome Diamond Mining{5} Company?” he said. “Probably not. It was floated about this time last year, and the greater part of the business came into my hands. The shares were taken up all right, but—well, it didn’t come to anything, and its affairs had something to do with my going out to the Cape. It was in connection with those same affairs that I and Ramsay met.”

Julian had listened so far with a clouded countenance, and now, as Loring paused, he leant back in his chair with a movement of irrepressible disappointment.

“Oh!” he said shortly. “It’s a mine, then?”

“There is a mine in connection with it,” replied Loring imperturbably. “But you need not trouble yourself about the mine. That is only the figure-head, you understand. The affair itself is a matter of—arrangement. Look here, Romayne,” he went on, as Julian leant suddenly forward across the table, “shares in the Welcome Diamond Mining Company are at this moment worth about five shillings each.”

He paused. He had been leaning carelessly{6} back in his chair, and now he moved, uncrossing his legs, and leaning one arm on the table.

“In a few days,” he went on deliberately and significantly, “they will fall to two shillings.” He paused again, with a slight, matter-of-course gesture. “That will be worked, of course,” he said.

Julian nodded comprehension.

“Yes?” he said.

“At that price,” continued Loring, “all the shares will be bought up by two or three men, in consequence of private information received from the Cape.”

The last words came from Loring slowly and deliberately, and his eyes met Julian’s significantly. A quick flash of understanding passed across Julian’s face, and Loring continued easily:

“Reports to this effect will get about. The fact of the presence in London of a mining engineer from the vicinity of the Welcome will also get about. Perhaps he may allow himself to be interviewed, you know—nothing definite, of course. The shares will go up with a run.”

{7}

He paused, and Julian threw himself back in his chair, tapping the table meditatively with one hand. His gaze was fixed upon the wall just over Loring’s head, and there was a curious expression on his face which combined the keen matter-of-fact calculation of the habitual speculator with a certain unconscious gleam of hungry excitement which was eloquent of youth and inexperience. A minute or two passed, during which Mr. Ramsay’s eyes rested indifferently on the young man’s face, and then Julian spoke. His voice, also, in spite of his evident attempt at emulation of Loring’s businesslike nonchalance, was just touched by that youthful incapacity for holding keen personal interest in abeyance.

“And the private information received from the Cape will be supplied——?” he said interrogatively.

“Will be supplied by Ramsay,” returned Loring.

The words were spoken with the slightest possible movement of the eyelids. Julian made a quick gesture of comprehension, and there was a moment’s silence. Then Loring{8} went on crisply, darting a quick glance at Julian’s face in its calculating eagerness.

“In a private speculation of this kind, of course, it is a case of working together and share and share alike. Now, we propose—Ramsay and I, you understand—to make up a joint capital for the purchase of these shares. We are prepared to put into it fifteen thousand pounds between us, and we want another ten thousand at least. If you are prepared to put in that sum, or more, on the understanding that the profits—after each man has received back his original investment—are divided into three equal shares, we are willing to take you in with us.”

Julian looked up at him quickly.

“Into three equal shares?” he said, with a stress on the adjective.

“Into three equal shares,” returned Loring drily. “Capital is not the sole requisite in this affair, and the other factors are supplied by Ramsay and myself.”

A dark flush mounted to Julian’s forehead, and the avidity in his eyes developed.

“It’s a large order, though,” he said. “I{9} don’t quite see where I come in at that rate, after all.”

Loring leant back in his chair and looked him full in the face.

“You can please yourself, of course,” he said. “Take it or leave it. You will come in to the tune of something like thirty thousand. If you see your way to trebling your capital by any other means, do so. Lots of fellows will be glad to take your place with us.”

Julian’s eyes gleamed greedily, and he wavered obviously.

“Those are your final terms?” he said.

“Our final terms,” said Loring concisely, looking at Ramsay, who nodded nonchalantly in confirmation of the words.

A silence ensued. Julian sat staring down at the table, his brows knit, evidently in close thought. At last he glanced up suddenly at the two men who had been waiting carelessly for his decision.

“I call it rather rough,” he said brusquely; “but—all right. If the thing looks all right when you’ve trotted it out, I accept.”

He passed on instantly, with a brief, telling{10} question, to the inner working of the scheme.

There is perhaps nothing by which self-revelation is more frankly and unconsciously made than through the means by which a man may be most easily roused to enthusiasm. Enthusiasm—a genuine quickening of his mental pulses, even—had been a condition of things practically unknown to the easy-going, commonplace Julian Romayne of a year before; but in the course of the last two months he had experienced it often. To hear of large sums of money, large profits, rapid returns on striking investments, touched him, instinctively, as a record of artistic achievements will touch an artist, as triumphs of research will touch an historian, as prodigies of physical prowess will touch an athlete. And as Loring answered him now, and went on with fuller and more technical detail, his face changed strikingly. His eyes brightened, and an eager, fascinated light came into them; he leant farther forward, listening, commenting, questioning, with quick and always increasing excitement.

Half an hour passed, and still the three men{11} sat about the table, talking in terse, businesslike fashion; three-quarters of an hour, an hour. At the end of that time, Julian, his face flushed and eager, his eyes glistening and sparkling, his hand absolutely shaking with excitement, was holding that hand out to Mr. Ramsay with a gesture which witnessed to the work of that hour, as volumes could not have done. As far as words went, he and Mr. Ramsay had hardly exchanged three sentences; it was the bond that lay behind the words that had drawn them together. Mr. Ramsay had spoken very little, indeed, but his silent presence had never for a moment seemed superfluous, or without a certain indefinite weight; and there was a dull approval in his slow eyes now as he turned them on the young man.

“We’ve settled so much, then,” said Julian, in a quick, familiar way, “and we meet here on Thursday at two. Until then——” He turned to Loring, and stretched out his hand eagerly. “Thanks, old man,” he said in a low, quick voice. “Thanks.”

{12}

CHAPTER II

Miss Pomeroy’s visit to Mrs. Romayne was postponed for a fortnight. At one time, indeed, it seemed not impossible that Mrs. Pomeroy’s visit to her sister in Devonshire might be postponed indefinitely, and Mrs. Romayne was charmingly inconsolable over her prospective disappointment.

It was a delightful thing to have a girl in the house! Mrs. Romayne made the discovery and the statement as the very first evening of Miss Pomeroy’s stay with her drew to a close. And certainly, the evening, signalised by a little dinner-party, had been pleasant enough to warrant satisfaction. Julian had been in the best possible spirits, elated apparently by the presence of his mother’s visitor, at whose side he was to be found whenever his duties as host{13} allowed such concentration of his attention. Miss Pomeroy herself had been a model of gentle amiability, and had looked more than usually bright and pretty. Loring, who had made one of the dinner guests, had also been at his best and most amusing. No conversation of any length had, of course, been possible between him and his hostess; but a quick, low-toned word or two passed between them in the movement that ensued upon the reappearance of the men in the drawing-room after dinner.

And on the tone of that first evening, that of the fortnight into which Miss Pomeroy’s stay lengthened itself was modelled. They were very dissipated, Mrs. Romayne asserted laughingly; and she further declared that she had never enjoyed dissipation so much. Julian’s hard-working impulses seemed to be in partial abeyance for the time being; their demands on him, though peremptory when they did occur, did not prevent a great deal of attendance on his mother and her guest. Loring also seemed hardly to have settled back into his usual routine, and frequently made one of the party. His{14} appearance on the scene, and the recognition of that compact between them which he never failed to make, either by a glance or a few quiet words, were never without a certain effect on Mrs. Romayne; not on her spirits, for they never varied in their gaiety; but on a hard restlessness in her eyes, always lessened for the moment by that look or word from Loring.

The last day of June was also the last day of Mrs. Pomeroy’s absence from London, and it was, moreover, the day fixed for a certain dance which was to stand out from all the other dances of the season. The givers of this dance were parvenus of the most pronounced type, and during the past three seasons, they had paid their way into London society by spending fortunes on the entertainments they gave. This season they had issued cards of invitation, on which each guest was requested to wear mediæval Florentine dress, and it had been whispered abroad that thousands were to be spent in providing such a setting for these costumes as should eclipse anything hitherto seen. Fortunately for the projectors—and nobody{15} knew better than they how absolutely impossible it was to calculate in such a matter—the idea caught society’s fancy; it was taken up with the wild enthusiasm which alternates in the modern mind with blank indifference; and as every one with an invitation had spent some three weeks in ardent consideration of his or her dress for

the occasion, that occasion had acquired a fictitious importance of a colossal nature, and was absolutely looked forward to as promising something quite unusual—and equally indefinite—in the way of amusement.

The whole thing had evidently been arranged, Mrs. Romayne declared gaily, to give a final touch of triumph to the end of Maud Pomeroy’s visit to her. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon of the day in question, and she and Miss Pomeroy, with Julian as escort, were taking what she described as “a little turn” in the Park when she expressed this opinion. It was a perfect June afternoon, the Park was very full, and all three seemed to be exhilarated either by the sunshine, the movement, or the prospect of the evening. The fortnight’s{16} intimate association with her present companions had apparently had no effect whatever upon Miss Pomeroy’s demure conventionality of manner, but her word was readier than usual, and her expression was brighter; Mrs. Romayne talked and laughed and kept the ball of chatter going; and about Julian’s hilarity there was a touch of excitement which was a characteristic which had grown upon him markedly in the course of the last month. He turned upon his mother, protesting gaily.

“That’s much too depressing a point of view,” he said. “It forces on us exactly what we want to forget—that it is the end. Now, I’ve made up my mind to cut the connection between to-night and both yesterday and to-morrow, and enjoy myself tremendously.”

“And is ‘cutting the connection’—it sounds as if something might blow up—an indispensable preliminary?” laughed Mrs. Romayne.

“Why, of course.” He glanced at Miss Pomeroy as he spoke, and the colour deepened in her cheeks by just a shade as she turned{17} to Mrs. Romayne and said, with one of her little smiles and a rather poor attempt at mock confidence:

“Mr. Romayne wants to forget the terrific anxiety which he has already suffered over that gorgeous dress of his, and the terrific bill from which he has still to suffer.”

Julian’s protestations were as eager and boyish in manner as they were delicate and skilful in matter, and Mrs. Romayne broke in upon them with a laughing apology and a request that Julian would tell the coachman to turn out into Piccadilly and drive to a house in Grosvenor Place. Julian gave the order, and added to it:

“You can pull up when you get out of the Park.”

Mrs. Romayne took up the words instantly.

“Are you not coming with us, bad boy?” she said. “Come and help us pay one call, at any rate. We are going straight home after that to prepare ourselves for the triumphs of the evening by a little refreshing laziness, are we not, Maud?”

“I should like to immensely!” returned{18} Julian ardently as Miss Pomeroy smiled a response. “But I’m afraid I must go down to the club. I promised to meet Loring there! Dinner at eight, I suppose?” he added as the carriage drew up and he jumped out.

He stepped back on the pavement, lifting his hat as the carriage drove off. Then he jumped into a hansom and gave the word to drive, not to the club but to the Temple. Arrived there he ran upstairs, the excitement about him gaining ground moment by moment, to Marston Loring’s rooms. Loring was there alone. He was seated at the writing-table writing rapidly, his face keen and intent, and he suspended his work for an instant only as he glanced up on the opening of the door and nodded a greeting.

Julian’s life for the last month had been lived at that high pressure which is only produced in a man by the consciousness that he has burnt his ships. Every shilling that he had accumulated during the previous six months was invested in the scheme propounded to him a month ago by Marston Loring; and the history of his real life during{19} the interval would have been a history of the stages through which that scheme had passed. The affairs of the Welcome Diamond Mining Company had followed precisely the course indicated by Loring during that first interview on the subject between Loring, Ramsay, and Julian. Shortly after that interview “Welcomes” had fallen to a nominal price; they had then been bought up according to arrangement. A slight rise had followed as a matter of course, followed by an interval of vacillation, and a slow succession of trifling advances, which had again been succeeded by a period of quiet.

So far the excitement with which every hour had been instinct for Julian had been the excitement of preparation solely; the ground had been tilled and the seed sown. And what that soil was in which he had sown his seed; what were the characteristics that were to prove so stimulating; it was not in him to consider. He was perfectly well aware of the nature of the transaction in which he was engaged; he had understood at the outset that the “private information received from the Cape” on which the shares{20} were to be bought up was a “put up thing,” as he would have expressed it, between Ramsay and Marston Loring; and the knowledge affected him not at all. That black thread in the warp of his character was running strong and deep now, and to such considerations his sensibilities were absolutely dormant.

“Well?” The monosyllable broke from him eager and impetuous, as though it contained the pent-up suspense and excitement of hours. He had come up rapidly to Loring’s side, and the latter, without lifting his eyes, signed to an evening paper which lay on the table as he said briefly:

“All right!”

Julian’s face turned quite white; he snatched up the paper and turned with breathless eagerness to the column devoted to the money market.

“Welcome Diamond Company Shares.”