The Market-Place | Page 5

his feelings

impelled him to be perfectly open. He paused, and was awkwardly
conscious of constraint in the silence which ensued. "You are very kind
to put it in that way," said Lord Plowden, at last. He seemed also to be
finding words for his thoughts with a certain difficulty. He turned his
cigar round in his white fingers meditatively. "I gather that your
success has been complete--as complete as you yourself could have
desired. I congratulate you with all my heart."
"No--don't say my success--say our success," put in Thorpe.
"But, my dear man," the other corrected him, "my interest, compared
with yours, is hardly more than nominal. I'm a Director, of course, and
I'm not displeased that my few shares should be worth something
instead of nothing, but----"
Thorpe lifted one of his heavy hands. "That isn't my view of the thing
at all. To be frank, I was turning over in my mind, just awhile ago,
before you came in, some way of arranging all that on a different
footing. If you'll trust it to me, I think you'll find it's all right."
Something in the form of this remark seemed to restore to Lord
Plowden his accustomed fluency of speech.
"I came here to say precisely that thing," he began--"that I do trust it to
you. We have never had any very definite talk on the subject--and pray
don't think that I want to go into details now. I'd much rather not, in
fact. But what I do want to say to you is this: I believe in you. I feel
sure that you are going to go far, as the saying is. Well, I want to tie
myself to your star. Do you see what I mean? You are going to be a
power in finance. You are going to be able to make and unmake men as
you choose. I should be very much obliged indeed if you would make
me."
Thorpe regarded the handsome and titled man of fashion with what
seemed to the other a lethargic gaze. In truth, his mind was toiling with
strenuous activity to master, in all its bearings, the significance of what
had been said. This habit of the abstracted and lack-lustre eye, the
while he was hard at work thinking, was a fortuitous asset which he had

never up to that time learned that he possessed. Unconsciously, he
dampened the spirits of his companion.
"Don't imagine I'm trying to force myself upon you," Lord Plowden
said, growing cool in the face of this slow stare. "I'm asking nothing at
all. I had the impulse to come and say to you that you are a great man,
and that you've done a great thing--and done it, moreover, in a very
great way."
"You know how it was done!" The wondering exclamation forced itself
from Thorpe's unready lips. He bent forward a little, and took a new
visual hold, as it were, of his companion's countenance.
Lord Plowden smiled. "Did you think I was such a hopeless duffer,
then?" he rejoined.
For answer, Thorpe leant back in his chair, crossed his legs, and patted
his knee contentedly. All at once his face had lightened; a genial
speculation returned to his grey eyes.
"Well, I was in a curious position about you, you see," he began to
explain. The relief with which he spoke was palpable. "I could not for
the life of me make up my mind whether to tell you about it or not.
Let's see--this is Thursday; did I see you Tuesday? At any rate, the
scheme didn't dawn on me myself until toward evening Tuesday. But
yesterday, of course, I could have told you--and again this
afternoon--but, as I say, I couldn't make up my mind. Once I had it on
the tip of my tongue--but somehow I didn't. And you--you never gave
me a hint that you saw what was going on."
Again Lord Plowden smiled. "I voted with you," he put in softly.
Thorpe laughed, and relit his cigar. "Well, I couldn't have asked
anything better than this, "he declared once again. "It beats all the rest
put together, to my mind."
"Perhaps I don't quite follow your meaning," commented the other
tentatively.

"Why man," Thorpe explained, hesitating a little in his choice of words,
but speaking with evident fervour; "I was more anxious about you--and
the way you'd take it-- than about anything else. I give you my word I
was. I couldn't tell at all how you'd feel about the thing. You might
think that it was all right, and then again you might round on me--or no,
I don't mean quite that-- but you might say it wasn't good enough for
you, and wash your hands of the whole affair. And I can't tell