Within the Tides | Page 5

struck me most," interrupted the other, "is that she should pick me out for such a long conversation."
"That's perhaps because you were the most remarkable of the men there."
Renouard shook his head.
"This shot doesn't seem to me to hit the mark," he said calmly. "Try again."
"Don't you believe me? Oh, you modest creature. Well, let me assure you that under ordinary circumstances it would have been a good shot. You are sufficiently remarkable. But you seem a pretty acute customer too. The circumstances are extraordinary. By Jove they are!"
He mused. After a time the Planter of Malata dropped a negligent -
"And you know them."
"And I know them," assented the all-knowing Editor, soberly, as though the occasion were too special for a display of professional vanity; a vanity so well known to Renouard that its absence augmented his wonder and almost made him uneasy as if portending bad news of some sort.
"You have met those people?" he asked.
"No. I was to have met them last night, but I had to send an apology to Willie in the morning. It was then that he had the bright idea to invite you to fill the place, from a muddled notion that you could be of use. Willie is stupid sometimes. For it is clear that you are the last man able to help."
"How on earth do I come to be mixed up in this--whatever it is?" Renouard's voice was slightly altered by nervous irritation. "I only arrived here yesterday morning."
CHAPTER II

His friend the Editor turned to him squarely. "Willie took me into consultation, and since he seems to have let you in I may just as well tell you what is up. I shall try to be as short as I can. But in confidence--mind!"
He waited. Renouard, his uneasiness growing on him unreasonably, assented by a nod, and the other lost no time in beginning. Professor Moorsom--physicist and philosopher--fine head of white hair, to judge from the photographs--plenty of brains in the head too--all these famous books--surely even Renouard would know. . . .
Renouard muttered moodily that it wasn't his sort of reading, and his friend hastened to assure him earnestly that neither was it his sort--except as a matter of business and duty, for the literary page of that newspaper which was his property (and the pride of his life). The only literary newspaper in the Antipodes could not ignore the fashionable philosopher of the age. Not that anybody read Moorsom at the Antipodes, but everybody had heard of him-- women, children, dock labourers, cabmen. The only person (besides himself) who had read Moorsom, as far as he knew, was old Dunster, who used to call himself a Moorsomian (or was it Moorsomite) years and years ago, long before Moorsom had worked himself up into the great swell he was now, in every way. . . Socially too. Quite the fashion in the highest world.
Renouard listened with profoundly concealed attention. "A charlatan," he muttered languidly.
"Well--no. I should say not. I shouldn't wonder though if most of his writing had been done with his tongue in his cheek. Of course. That's to be expected. I tell you what: the only really honest writing is to be found in newspapers and nowhere else--and don't you forget it."
The Editor paused with a basilisk stare till Renouard had conceded a casual: "I dare say," and only then went on to explain that old Dunster, during his European tour, had been made rather a lion of in London, where he stayed with the Moorsoms--he meant the father and the girl. The professor had been a widower for a long time.
"She doesn't look just a girl," muttered Renouard. The other agreed. Very likely not. Had been playing the London hostess to tip-top people ever since she put her hair up, probably.
"I don't expect to see any girlish bloom on her when I do have the privilege," he continued. "Those people are staying with the Dunster's incog., in a manner, you understand--something like royalties. They don't deceive anybody, but they want to be left to themselves. We have even kept them out of the paper--to oblige old Dunster. But we shall put your arrival in--our local celebrity."
"Heavens!"
"Yes. Mr. G. Renouard, the explorer, whose indomitable energy, etc., and who is now working for the prosperity of our country in another way on his Malata plantation . . . And, by the by, how's the silk plant--flourishing?"
"Yes."
"Did you bring any fibre?"
"Schooner-full."
"I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for experimental manufacture, eh? Eminent capitalists at home very much interested, aren't they?"
"They are."
A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered slowly--"You will be a rich man some day."
Renouard's face did not betray his opinion of that confident prophecy. He didn't say anything till his friend suggested in the same meditative voice -
"You ought to