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He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in competition with Mrs. Windlebird's news. Equally mechanically he unfolded it and glanced at front page; and, as he did do, a flaring explosion of headlines smote his eye. Out of the explosion emerged the word "WILD-CATS".
On thinking it over, after he had cashed Roland's check, Mr. Windlebird came to the conclusion that seven hundred pounds would be quite as much money as it would be good for Miss Coppin to have all at once. Mr. Windlebird's knowledge of human nature was not at fault. Muriel jumped at the money, and a letter in her handwriting informed Roland next morning that his slate was clean.
It gave a brief account of some large deal which Mr. Windlebird was negotiating. Roland did not understand a word of it, but it gave him an idea. Mr. Windlebird's financial standing, he knew, was above suspicion. Mr. Windlebird had made that clear to him during his visit. There could be no possibility of offending Mr. Windlebird by a paragraph or two about the manners and customs of financiers.
There were moments when it seemed to Mr. Windlebird that he had solved the problem of Perpetual Promotion. The only thing that can stop a triumphal progress like Mr. Windlebird's is when some coarse person refuses to play to the rules, and demands ready money instead of shares in the next venture. This had happened now, and it had flattened Mr. Windlebird like an avalanche.
He might appear at any moment now. The sight of his hostess drove all thoughts of sport out of his mind. She was looking terribly troubled. It flashed across Roland that both his host and hostess had been unusually silent at dinner the night before; and later, passing Mr. Windlebird's room on his way to bed, he had heard their voices, low and agitated. Could they have had some bad news? "Mr.
Geoffrey Windlebird's was a name which he had learned, in the course of his mercantile career, to hold in something approaching reverence as that of one of the mightiest business brains of the age. To have to meet so eminent a man in the capacity of invalid, a nuisance about the house, was almost too much for Roland's shrinking nature.
So absorbed was he in his troubles that he was not aware of Mr. Windlebird's approach until that pleasant, portly man's shadow fell on the turf before him. "Not had an accident, I hope, Mr. Bleke?" Roland was too far gone in misery to speculate as to how this genial stranger came to know his name. As a matter of fact, Mrs.
"Why, if I've made a couple of hundred thousand, what must Mr. Windlebird have netted. It says here that he is the largest holder. He must have pulled off the biggest thing of his life." He thought for a moment. "The chap I'm sorry for," he said meditatively, "is Mr. Windlebird's pal. You know. The fellow whom Mr. Windlebird persuaded to sell all his shares to me."
"Why!" he exclaimed. "There's columns about Wild-cats on the front page here!" "Yes?" Mrs. Windlebird's voice sounded strangely dull and toneless. Her eyes were still closed. Roland took in the headlines with starting eyes.
It was not long before he had told them the history of his career, skipping the earlier years and beginning with the entry of wealth into his life. "It makes you feel funny," he confided to Mr. Windlebird's sympathetic ear, "suddenly coming into a pot of money like that. You don't seem hardly able to realize it. I don't know what to do with it." Mr. Windlebird smiled paternally.
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