"You have no money," he objected, finally.
"What?" In Baggin's mouth the question was an insult.
He disregarded Baggin's scornful ejaculation, and continued impersonally, as if reading aloud from a book.
"Genius, my friend! Genius is as high above mere money as the stars wheeling in their celestial courses are above the earth. It is human electricity--the motive power of the world. With my power, the spark I feel within me here"--he touched his white shirt-front--"I could wipe out kingdoms and principalities, change the map of Europe more drastically than Napoleon--and bloodlessly! Think of it a moment, my prosaic, financial friend! I who sit here in this room, with you and a dead man, _can do these things_! Just one little pawn in the game is missing. Money. A few million pounds for running expenses and for salaries to my--er--myrmidons! That item, Mr. Baggin, I expect to be supplied by you."
He laughed outright at Baggin's frowning, mistrustful face, crossed one leg over the other, and clasped his silk-clad ankle with a shapely hand.
Baggin noted the boyish action. It at once irritated him and determined his course.
"Unfortunately," he replied drily, "we have already chosen our president and voted upon the immediate use of the fund. The map of Europe, I fear, must for the present remain unaltered----" He glanced up and added hurriedly, "I--regret this---- Perhaps at our next meeting---- The membership, as you perhaps know, is--er--limited."
The young man sprang to his feet. His face was bronze.
"It is of no consequence, my friend." He laughed softly. "Simply, the scheme appealed to me. It fired my imagination. I am, as you know, a dreamer.
"'If you can dream, and not make dreams your master,'" he murmured.
He walked over to the corner of the room, picked up his Inverness, and stood looking composedly down upon the figure which it had concealed.
"_Salve_, my friend! You go down the river tonight, wiser than all the kings of earth."
He slipped into his coat and turned toward Baggin, who had also risen.
"You will see that it gets into the morning papers," he said. "I could wish to write it myself," he added pensively, drawing on his gloves. "It has possibilities. So: 'Grayson a suicide. Great financier shows himself at the opera, bids the gay world good-night, and throws himself in the Thames. A flying rumour breathes money troubles as a cause for the tragedy.' Wait!" he fumbled in his breast pocket, "I'll write a note to pin to his clothes."