Chapter 32

It was business of serious importance which was to bring Captain Palliser's visit to a close. He explained it perfectly to Miss Alicia a day or so after Lady Mallowe and her daughter left them. He had lately been most amiable in his manner toward Miss Alicia, and had given her much valuable information about companies and stocks. He rather unexpectedly found it imperative that he should go to London and Berlin to "see people"--dealers in great financial schemes who were deeply interested in solid business speculations, such as his own, which were fundamentally different from all others in the impeccable firmness of their foundations.

"I suppose he will be very rich some day," Miss Alicia remarked the first morning she and T. Tembarom took their breakfast alone together after his departure. "It would frighten me to think of having as much money as he seems likely to have quite soon."

"It would scare me to death," said Tembarom. She knew he was making a sort of joke, but she thought the point of it was her tremor at the thought of great fortune.

"He seemed to think that it would be an excellent thing for you to invest in--I'm not sure whether it was the India Rubber Tree Company, or the mahogany forests or the copper mines that have so much gold and silver mixed in them that it will pay for the expense of the digging-- " she went on.

"I guess it was the whole lot," put in Tembarom.

"Perhaps it was. They are all going to make everybody so rich that it is quite bewildering. He is very clever in business matters. And so kind. He even said that if I really wished it he might be able to invest my income for me and actually treble it in a year. But of course I told him that my income was your generous gift to me, and that it was far more than sufficient for my needs."

Tembarom put down his coffee-cup so suddenly to look at her that she was fearful that she had appeared to do Captain Palliser some vague injustice.

"I am sure he meant to be most obliging, dear," she explained. "I was really quite touched. He said most sympathetically and delicately that when women were unmarried, and unaccustomed to investment, sometimes a business man could be of use to them. He forgot"--affectionately-- "that I had you."

Tembarom regarded her with tender curiosity. She often opened up vistas for him as he himself opened them for the Duke of Stone.

"If you hadn't had me, would you have let him treble your income in a year?" he asked.

Her expression was that of a soft, woodland rabbit or a trusting spinster dove.

"Well, of course, if one were quite alone in the world and had only a small income, it would be nice to have it wonderfully added to in such a short time," she answered. "But it was his friendly solicitude which touched me. I have not been accustomed to such interested delicacy on the part of--of gentlemen." Her hesitance before the last word