Litton paused for a few moments, tapping his teeth as if undecided, till his chief paused and looked at him curiously.

"Well, what is it?" he said.

"Look here, Mr Elbraham," said Litton, "I suppose we are not very good friends?"

"H'm, I don't know. You are in my pay," said the financier coa.r.s.ely, "so you ought to be one of my best friends."

"You've said too many sharp things to me, Mr Elbraham, to make me feel warmly towards you; but, all the same, I confess that you have done me some very good turns in money matters; and I hope, though I take your pay, that I am too much of a gentleman to stand by and see anyone take a mean advantage of a weakness on your part."

"Weakness? My part!" said the financier fiercely, as if the very idea of his being weak was absurd.

"Yes, sir, weakness. Look here, Mr Elbraham, I should not like to see you taken in."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Mean?" said Litton. "Well, Mr Elbraham, I'm not afraid of you; so whether you are offended or not, I shall speak out."

"Then speak out, sir, and don't shilly-shally."

"Well, sir, it seems to me that there's a good deal of fortune-hunting about. Those Dymc.o.x people have good blood, certainly; but they're as poor as rats, and I'll be bound to say nothing would please the old aunts better than hooking you, with one of those girls for a bait."

"Will you have the goodness to reply to that batch of letters, Mr Litton?" said Elbraham haughtily. "I asked your opinion--or, rather, gave you my opinion--of Miss Clotilde Dymc.o.x, and you favour me with a pack of impertinent insinuations regarding the family at Hampton Court."

Mr Elbraham went angrily out into the hall to don his light and tight overcoat and grey hat, and walk down to the station.

As Litton heard the door close he sank back in his chair at the writing-table, and laughed silently and heartily.

"Ha, ha, ha!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "and this is your clever financier--this is your man far above the ordinary race in shrewdness! Why am I not wealthy, too, when I can turn the scoundrel round my finger, clever as he believes he is? Clever, talented, great! Why, if I metaphorically pull his tail like one would that of a pig, saying, 'You shan't go that way!' he grunts savagely, and makes straight for the hole."

Arthur Litton took one of Mr Elbraham's choice cigars from his case, deliberately pitched aside the letters he had to answer, struck a light, placed his heels upon the table, and, balancing his chair upon two legs, began to smoke.

"Well, so far so good," he said at last, as he watched the aromatic rings of smoke ascend towards the ceiling. "I suppose it is so. Mr Elbraham is one of the cleverest men on 'Change, and he manages the money-making world. I can manage Mr Elbraham. _Ergo_, I am a cleverer man than the great financier; but he makes his thousands where I make shillings and pence. Why is this?"

The answer was all smoke; and satisfactory as that aromatic, sedative vapour was in the mouth, it was lighter than the air upon which it rose, and Arthur Litton continued his soliloquising.

"I'm afraid that I shall never make any money upon 'Change, or by bolstering up bad companies, and robbing the widow, the orphan, the retired officer, and the poor parson of their savings. It is not my way. I should have no compunction if they were fools enough to throw me their money. I should take it and spend it, as Elbraham and a score more such scoundrels spend theirs. What does it matter? What is the difference to him between having a few hundred pounds more or less in this world? They talk about starvation when their incomes are more than mine. They say they are beggared when they have hundreds left. Genteel poverty is one of the greatest shams under the sun."

"Not a bad cigar," he said, after a fresh pause. "He has that virtue in him, certainly, he does get good cigars; and money! money! money! how he does get money--a scoundrel!--while I get none, or next to none. Well, well, I think I am pulling the strings in a way that should satisfy the most exacting of Lady Littletowns, and it is ridiculous how the scoundrel of a puppet dances to the tune I play."

He laughed in a way that would have made his fortune had he played Mephistopheles upon the stage. Then, carefully removing a good inch and a half of ash:

"And now, my sweet old match-maker," he continued, "will you keep your promise? I am a poor unlucky devil, and the only way to save me is by settling me with a rich wife such as she promises.

"Hum, yes!" he said softly, "a wife with a good fortune. Elbraham takes one without a penny, for the sake of her looks; the aunts sell the girl for the sake of his money. A cheerful marriage, and," he added cynically, "as the French say, _apres_?"

"Take my case, as I am in a humour for philosophising. I am to be introduced to a rich lady, and shall marry her for the sake of the fortune. She will marry me for my youth, I suppose, and good looks--I suppose I may say good looks," he continued, rising, crossing the room, and gazing in the gla.s.s. "Yes, Arthur, you may add good looks, for you are a gentlemanly fellow, and just of an age to attract a woman who is decidedly off colour."

He paused, rested his elbows upon the chimney-piece, and kept on puffing little clouds of smoke against the mirror, watching them curiously as they obliterated his reflection for the moment, and then rolled slowly up, singularly close to the gla.s.s.

He did this again and again, watching his dimly-seen reflection till it had grown plain, and then he laughed as if amused.

"Yes, I am decidedly good-looking, and I say it without vanity," he continued, "for I am looking at myself from a marketable point of view.

And the lady? Suppose I always look at her through the clouds, for she will be elderly and plain--of that I may rest a.s.sured; but I can gild her; she will be gilded for me, and as the Scots say, 'a' cats are grey i' the dark!' so why should I mind? If I wed the fairest woman under the sun I should forget her looks in a week, while other men worried me by their admiration. So there it is, ladies and gentlemen; the fair Clotilde and the manly Arthur Litton about to be sold by Society's prize-auction to the highest bidders, and this is the land where slavery is unknown--the land of the free! This, ladies and gentlemen, is Christian England!"

He seemed to be highly amused at this idea, and laughed and gazed at himself in the gla.s.s as if perfectly satisfied that his face would make a change in his lot, after which he threw away the remains of the cigar he was smoking, and taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, he walked across to Elbraham's cabinet, which he unlocked, and helped himself to a couple of the best Rothschilds, one of which he lit.

Arthur Litton was very thoughtful now, and it took some time to get to work; but he finished the task entrusted to him, and then, after a little consideration, he rose to go, making his way to Lady Littletown's.

Her ladyship was at home, in the conservatory, the footman said; and treating the visitor as an old friend, he opened the drawing-room door, and Litton walked in unannounced.

Her ladyship was busy, in a pair of white kid gloves, snipping off faded leaves and flowers, and she left her occupation to greet her visitor.

"Well, Arturo, no bad news, I hope?"

"Only that the great Potiphar, the man of money, is completely hooked, and determined to embark upon the troubled sea of matrimony."

"Is that bad news?" said her ladyship. "I call it a triumph of diplomacy, Arturo. Spoils from the enemy!"

"Then you are satisfied?"

"More than satisfied, my clever diplomat, and you shall have your reward."

"When?"

Lady Littletown snipped here and snipped there, treating some of her choicest flowers in a way that would have maddened her head gardener had he seen, for unfaded flowers dropped here and there beneath the stands in a way that showed her ladyship to be highly excited.

"Now look here, Arturo," she exclaimed at last, as she turned upon him, and seemed to menace him with her sharp-pointed scissors, which poked and snipped at him till a bystander might have imagined that Lady Littletown took him for a flower whose head gave her offence--"Now look here, Arturo, do you want to make me angry?"

"No: indeed no," he cried deprecatingly.

"Then why do you ask me such a question as that?"

"Well," he said, smiling, "is it not reasonable that I should feel impatient?"

"Perhaps so. I'll grant it; but, my good boy, you must be a man of the world; and now that we are upon that subject, let us understand one another."

"By all means," a.s.sented Litton eagerly.

"First of all, though, I cannot worry myself with too much work at once.

I have those two girls to marry, and I must get that out of hand before I undertake more."

"Exactly; and all is now in train."

"Many a slip, Arturo, 'twixt cup and lip; but we shall see--we shall see."

Her ladyship went on snipping vigorously.

"I want you to understand me. To speak plainly, Arturo, you are a gentleman of great polish."

"Thanks," he said, bowing.