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I have something else to do with my money than to pour it into Barstow's pockets. I know the man. Send him to me to-morrow, and I'll talk to him as between gentlemen." Walter Hine flushed. He had grown accustomed to deference and flatteries in the household of Garratt Skinner. The unceremonious scorn of Mr. Jarvice stung his vanity, and vanity was the one strong element of his character.
"To put it on the lowest ground, what could I gain?" Walter Hine wrote down the address, and at once the clerk appeared at the door and handed Jarvice a card. "I will see him," said Jarvice, and turning to Hine: "Our business is over, I think." Jarvice opened a second door which led from the inner office straight down a little staircase into the street. "Good-by.
"Oh, I could dispose of it all right," interrupted Mr. Hine with a chuckle. "Don't you worry your head about that." Mr. Jarvice laughed heartily at the joke. Walter Hine could not but think that he had made a very witty remark. He began to thaw into something like confidence. He sat more easily on his chair. "You will have your little joke, Mr. Hine. You could dispose of it! Very good indeed!
I remember the words, for I did not know whether there was not something which needed attention. It ran like this: 'What are you waiting for? Hurry up." "Was it signed?" asked Chayne. "Yes. 'Jarvice," replied Sylvia. "Jarvice," Chayne repeated; and he spoke it yet again, as though in some vague way it was familiar to him. "What was the date of the telegram?"
Jarvice had certain plans for Walter Hine's future so he phrased it with a smile for the grim humor of the phrase and fate seemed to be helping toward their fulfilment. "I can get you out of this scrape, no doubt," said Jarvice, turning back to his table. "The means I must think over, but I can do it. Only there's a condition. You need not be alarmed.
"Two thousand a year!" gasped Mr. Hine, leaning back in his chair. "It ain't possible. Two thou here, what am I to do for it?" "Nothing, except to spend it like a gentleman," said Mr. Jarvice, beaming upon his visitor. It did not seem to occur to either man that Mr. Jarvice had set to his loan the one condition which Mr. Walter Hine never could fulfil.
"You have that telegram from Jarvice?" "Yes." "That's good," he said. "It might be useful." Never that familiar journey across France seemed to Chayne so slow. Would he be in time? Would he arrive too late? The throb of the wheels beat out the questions in a perpetual rhythm and gave him no answer.
Garratt Skinner with Barstow for his jackal and the pretty daughter for his decoy was too powerful a factor to be lightly regarded. Jarvice must share with Garratt Skinner unless he preferred to abandon his scheme altogether; and that Mr. Jarvice would not do. There was no other way.
If I were young, bless me, if I wouldn't throw my bonnet over the mill, as after a few weeks in La Ville Lumière you will be saying, and go with you. You will taste life yes, life." And as he repeated the word, all the jollity died suddenly out of the face of Mr. Jarvice. He bent his eyes somberly upon his visitor and a queer inscrutable smile played about his lips.
"Will you sit down?" he said, suavely, pointing to a chair. "Maunders, you can go." Walter Hine turned quickly, as though he would have preferred Maunders to stay, but he let him go. Mr. Jarvice shut the door carefully, and, walking across the room, stood over his visitor with his hands in his pockets, and renewed his scrutiny. Walter Hine grew uncomfortable, and blurted out with a cockney twang
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