Gladys Callander was preparing to make an afternoon call when the grind of motorcar wheels on the gravelled drive took her to the window. Before the house was a strange car, and alighting therefrom was a man who was no stranger, for it was her erratic cousin.
She hurried downstairs to meet him, angry with herself that his coming should bring the blood to her face and make her heart beat faster.
He was waiting in the drawing-room.
“Have you got time for a little chat?” he asked quickly, and seeing that she hesitated, “It’s rather important,” he urged, “and I shan’t keep you more than half an hour.”
“Come into the garden,” she said.
They walked a little way before he spoke.
“You know Lord Pinlow, of course,” he said. What made her make the reply she did, she could never afterwards understand.
“Oh, yes, I am engaged to be married to him.” It was not true; she knew it was not true when she said it, but she said it.
He stopped, and looked at her gravely, his lips tight, his eyebrows drawn level in a frown.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Then he looked past her and seemed to be thinking.
“None the less,” he went on after awhile, “I’ve got to say what I have to say: Pinlow and his friends have got your father in a nice mess.”
“My father?” she asked in alarm.
“Your father,” he repeated grimly.
“But how?”
“Speculation,” said Brian. “He’s been investing in a pretty unholy mining share. Pinlow is in it. It wasn’t a big rig; Pinlow had a respectable parcel to unload, and he unloaded them upon your innocent parent.”
“But what does that mean?”
“It means that unless a miracle happens your father will lose more money than it is good for any man to lose. I went to him yesterday to persuade him to sell. I’m afraid I wasn’t any too tactful.”
“I don’t quite understand,” she said. “Has my father been making unwise investments?”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” he replied smilingly. “I tried to get him to drop them, but, acting on the advice of—of your fiancé” she winced—“he resolved to hold his stock.”
“And now?”
Brian shrugged his shoulders.
“Now the shares he bought at six pounds he won’t be able to sell at three. I tried to hold ’em up, but as soon as I put ’em to six he bought again.”
She was deep in troubled thought.
“Will he lose much?” she asked.
“That depends entirely upon when he sells and what he holds. My information is that he has about twenty thousand shares—if he loses three pounds a share he will lose sixty thousand pounds.”
The girl went white.
“You don’t mean that? Why, father couldn’t afford to lose as much. I—I don’t know much about his business, but I know that much. It would ruin us.”
Brian nodded his head slowly.
“So I think,” he said. “Now I’ll tell you why I’ve come down. To the man who can hold, and afford to hold, Beitjesfonteins, they are not a bad investment, always providing one can get rid of the present board. I am willing to buy your father’s interest at the price he paid. If I go into the market to buy them, I shall probably be getting Pinlow’s and his ‘precious friends’. As the stock stands to-day, and with the information I have about your father’s holdings, I should say that he stands to lose about forty-five thousand pounds.”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said quietly, “that would mean that the loss would fall on you.”
“I know that,” he interrupted, “but so far as I am concerned the loss would not concern me—and I would take jolly good care that I lost nothing. Now the question is, have you sufficient influence with your father to induce him to sell to me?”
“I have no influence,” she said sadly. “Father would be very angry if he knew that I had any communication with you; he would be furious if he knew the nature of the communication.”
They had reached the little belt of pine wood that lies behind Hill View, and she turned.
“Then it’s pretty hopeless,” he said, and she inclined her head.
“You mustn’t think that I’m not grateful, and I half know that what you have said about Lord Pinlow is true. I am sure that man has an evil influence”
A look of amazement on his face stopped her. For a moment she looked around to see what had caused it, then blushed scarlet as she remembered.
“You said you were engaged to Pinlow,” he said slowly.
She was a picture of pretty confusion as she stood there twisting her handkerchief in her hand.
“I—I am not exactly engaged,” she faltered. “He has asked father, and I have said I would sooner marry a—a sweep, and father was very annoyed—and I loathe Lord Pinlow”