|IN Sam’s opinion, nobody had suffered. Mr. Travers lost nothing, because the corner house had conquered Minnifie at sight, and he would not in any case have bought the white elephant which Travers had for sale. Calverts had got as much as they expected to get for the houses, or they would not have sold, while the beneficiary under the late owner’s will was a charity, and Sam hoped that charity was charitable enough not to look a gift-horse in the mouth: if it wasn’t, it ought to be. As to the purchasers, who had certainly paid more for the property than they need have done, that was what purchasers were for. Why did smart business men exist if not to exploit purchasers?
All this was highly comforting, but to confess the need for comfort was to admit to disquiet, and he found that it was one thing to argue in this strain with his conscience, and another to boast to Anne of his achievement. Women don’t understand business, and he had an uneasy feeling that the ethics of the transaction would not satisfy Anne. He decided that he had better not tell her, that he must resist his impulse of surprising her with the gift of a seal-skin coat, and remained a capitalist under the rose. There was no hurry, and perhaps his next stroke, when it came, would be under conditions that would bear the limelight of her scrutiny.
But repression was not all. Justify himself as he would, chuckle over his gains as he did, the matter searched him deeply and reacted sharply in two ways, of which the first began as that old expedient of sinners, conscience-money. There are defaulters who find absolution for themselves by sending notes, under initials, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by having them acknowledged with impressiveness in the personal columns of the _Times_. That was not Sam’s way: he did not do good deeds by stealth, and his conscience-money did not go out of the family. He used it philanthropically, but it was philanthropy and ten per cent, to begin with, and in the end it was very much more than ten per cent. It was the Chappie Bill Posting and Window-Cleaning Company.
He thought that he could, without exciting Anne’s suspicions, tell her that his savings had reached ten pounds, and proposed to spend that sum for the benefit of George Chappie.