Swirling Waters | Page 2

slightest. No money in it, I could see at once. I told Clifford so."
Sir Francis tugged at his watch impatiently. "He'll miss this train for
certain!"
"No; there he is!"
Matheson was striding rapidly through the press of people on the
platform. He quickly caught sight of his wife and father-in-law, and
came up with a gesture of apology.
"Sorry I'm so late. Very sorry, too, I shan't be able to travel with you
to-night."
"Experiment to finish?" queried Olive, with an unconcealed note of
contempt in her voice.
"A very important business engagement for this evening. Will you
excuse me? I can follow to-morrow."
"Can't it wait?"

"It's highly important."
"There's the 'phone to speak over."
"I have to come face to face with my man. Surely, Olive, you can spare
me for a day? Have you everything you want for the journey?"
"Who is the man?"
"Lars Larssen," answered Matheson. He lowered his voice slightly,
though on the bustling railway platform there was no likelihood of
anyone listening to the conversation.
Sir Francis nodded his head. He was heavily interested in
company-promoting himself, as a means of swelling an inadequate
property income, and Lars Larssen was a magic name.
"Hudson Bay scheme?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Well, business before pleasure," he remarked sententiously.
Olive cut in with a question. "Have you finished your experiments with
your brother?"
"No," answered Matheson evenly.
"When will they be finished?"
"I can't say. There's a great deal to be discussed and planned."
"Then bring him with you to-morrow. You can plan together whatever
it is you have to plan at Monte. Besides, I want to see him."
"John is a busy man," protested Matheson. "I don't think he can leave
his laboratory."
"Give him my invitation, and make it a pressing one," pursued Olive,

careless of anything but her own whim. "Tell him--tell him I
particularly want him to explain his experiments to me himself."
At this moment the little horn of departure sounded its quaint note from
the end of the platform, and a porter hurried to lock the door of the
wagon-lit.
"Have you everything you want for the journey?" asked Matheson.
"I have everything I want," replied his wife coldly. "My father has seen
to that.... Good-bye."
She did not offer to kiss him, and he for his part drew back into a shell
of reserve. Many thoughts were buzzing through his mind as they
exchanged the commonplaces of a railway station good-bye from either
side of a compartment window.
Olive's last words were: "Remember, I'm expecting you to bring your
brother with you to-morrow."
A very tired look was in Matheson's eyes, and a weary droop on his
shoulders, as the train pulled out and he was left alone on the platform.
Two Frenchmen whispered to one another about him. "The milord
Matheson, see you! The very rich milord Matheson."
"Ah, if I were only a rich man too!"
"What would you do?"
"I should spend. How I should spend!" He licked his lips at the thought
of the pleasures of body that money could buy him.
"I should save," said the other. "I should make myself the richest man
in the world. That would be glorious!"
These last words reached the ears of Matheson, and set up a curious
train of thought as he drove in his cab to his office in the Rue Laffitte.
The words carried him back to a forest-clearing in the backwoods of

Ontario, where he and his half-brother had made holiday camp some
eighteen years before. They were comparing ambitions--two young
men unusually alike in features but very different in temperament and
will-power. John Rivière, the elder of the two, was dreaming of fame in
the paths of science--he had worked his way through M'Gill University
and was hoping for a demonstratorship to keep him in living expenses.
Clifford Matheson, a clerk in a broker's office, planned his life in terms
of cities and money. "To make big money--that's what I call success."
In the rapids of the stream by their feet was a swirl of waters covering a
sunken rock, and Rivière had thrown on to it a chip of wood. The chip
was whirled round and round, nearer and nearer to the centre, until
finally it was sucked under with a sudden extinguishment.
"There's the life you plan," he had said to Clifford....
CHAPTER II
A £5,000,000 DEAL
When Matheson reached his office, he was told by a clerk that Mr Lars
Larssen was already waiting to see him. He threw off his gloves and
fur-lined coat and adjusted the lights before he answered that his visitor
could be shown in. He added that the clerk could lock up his own
rooms and leave, as he would not be wanted any longer that