“Into three equal shares?” he said, with a stress on the adjective.
“Into three equal shares,” returned Loring drily. “Capital is not the sole requisite in this affair, and the other factors are supplied by Ramsay and myself.”
A dark flush mounted to Julian’s forehead, and the avidity in his eyes developed.
“It’s a large order, though,” he said. “I don’t quite see where I come in at that rate, after all.”
Loring leant back in his chair and looked him full in the face.
“You can please yourself, of course,” he said. “Take it or leave it. You will come in to the tune of something like thirty thousand. If you see your way to trebling your capital by any other means, do so. Lots of fellows will be glad to take your place with us.”
Julian’s eyes gleamed greedily, and he wavered obviously.
“Our final terms,” said Loring concisely, looking at Ramsay, who nodded nonchalantly in confirmation of the words.
A silence ensued. Julian sat staring down at the table, his brows knit, evidently in close thought. At last he glanced up suddenly at the two men who had been waiting carelessly for his decision.
“I call it rather rough,” he said brusquely; “but--all right. If the thing looks all right when you’ve trotted it out, I accept.”
He passed on instantly, with a brief, telling question, to the inner working of the scheme.
There is perhaps nothing by which self-revelation is more frankly and unconsciously made than through the means by which a man may be most easily roused to enthusiasm. Enthusiasm--a genuine quickening of his mental pulses, even--had been a condition of things practically unknown to the easy-going, commonplace Julian Romayne of a year before; but in the course of the last two months he had experienced it often. To hear of large sums of money, large profits, rapid returns on striking investments, touched him, instinctively, as a record of artistic achievements will touch an artist, as triumphs of research will touch an historian, as prodigies of physical prowess will touch an athlete. And as Loring answered him now, and went on with fuller and more technical detail, his face changed strikingly. His eyes brightened, and an eager, fascinated light came into them; he leant farther forward, listening, commenting, questioning, with quick and always increasing excitement.