"Lord Mel’s been in. Sent his respects to you. You’re not to worry—see?"
"I am not worrying much, Joe. Nobody escapes hard times."
"His lordship has faith in me. He ain’t offended. Just the same as ever. I told him everything—more than I told you."
"I lost a few hundreds dabbling in mines. All that foolishness is over and done with. I mean to stick to what I know, and the people I know who’ll stick to me. I shall give my undivided attention to business. I mean to work harder than ever, so as to win back what I’ve lost."
"I’m not speakin’ of money, Susie. I’ve lost my self-respect, and I don’t stand with you just where I did."
"I know I don’t. You ain’t suffering from a crick in the neck along of lookin’ up at me. I ain’t been soaring lately. Wriggling like a crushed worm about fits me."
"Joe, dear, you’ve never quite understood me."
"Lawsy! It never entered into your pretty head that it could be for worse?"
"I should love you just the same if it were."
"No, no, that ain’t sense, Susie. It won’t wash. You loved me because I was Joe Quinney—a feller with ambitions, a worker, a man with brains in his head. If I failed you, I should expect you to despise me. I should feel that I’d had you under false pretences."
Susan smiled very faintly. Her voice was curiously incisive:
"You have a lot to learn yet, Joe, about persons."
Lord Mel sent many customers to Soho Square. He felt sincerely sorry for the little man, and told everybody that he was a fighter and a striver, and "straight." Within a few months Quinney became the Quinney of old, full of enthusiasm and swagger, exuding energy, quite confident that he was soaring and likely to become a spire! An American millionaire one morning made a clean sweep of half the treasures in the sanctuary. Orders to furnish rooms in a given style with first-class reproductions came joyously to hand, and were executed promptly and at a reasonable price.
In due time, also, he became a member of the inner ring of big dealers. They tried to "freeze him out" by inflating prices, often at a serious loss to themselves, but eventually they were constrained to admit that the Melchester man was too shrewd for them, with a knowledge of values which seemed to have fallen upon him like the dew from heaven. At any moment he might stop bidding with an abruptness very disconcerting to the older men, leaving them with the _lapin_ which they were trying to impose upon him.