Palmer's air of bored indifference had long since vanished. Now he sat silent, motionless, while the ticking of the clock was the only sound to be heard in the room. A minute passed, two, three. Then, with a quick intake of his breath, he leaned forward in his chair.
The sun still hung an hour high above the horizon. No faintest breath of wind was stirring, and the tall pines along the island's shore stood mirrored in the broad lake's placid calm. The wildfowl, true to their custom, were bedded in huge flocks far out towards the center of the lake, and what few ducks there were stirring, kept for the most part warily out of range of the point.
Gordon sat in the blind alone, and for so keen a sportsman the poor shooting seemed to trouble him but little. On the contrary, his thoughts, which were of the pleasantest, had strayed far away from ducks and duck-shooting. He had played a difficult and a dangerous game, and had played it boldly and well. Rose and Mrs. Holton had acted their parts to perfection, and Palmer had behaved exactly as they had hoped he would. Gordon permitted himself a quiet smile of self-satisfaction. That was true enjoyment, after all. The ability to handle one's fellow-men; to humor them, to learn their weaknesses, and then to turn these weaknesses to one's own account; in that there was true satisfaction, in that there was the feeling of getting something really worth while from the game of life. So much for the past, and now for the future a hundred questions lay waiting to be solved. The problem as to whether a partner would be desirable, the best and quickest way of finding the right mine, the advertising campaign, the gaining of the public confidence, surely there were many things to be thought of yet, before the victory should be won.
At last, as the sun sank lower still, the folly of waiting any longer for the wildfowl to fly became apparent, and Gordon, rousing himself, was already beginning to gather up the decoys, when he caught sight of one of the little rowing skiffs putting out from the mainland. An instant feeling of uneasiness crept over him. "That's queer," he muttered to himself. "Vanulm isn't due till to-morrow, and he wouldn't be rowing at that rate, anyway. I wonder who it can be."