If he had been looking at his hostess then, an action which he was strenuously avoiding, he might have seen a curious spasm pa.s.s over her face. Mrs. Windlebird turned very pale and sat down suddenly in the chair which Roland had vacated at the beginning of their conversation.

She lay back in it with her eyes closed. She looked tired and defeated.

Roland took the paper mechanically. He wanted it as a diversion to the conversation merely, for his interest in the doings of Surrey and Yorkshire had waned to the point of complete indifference in compet.i.tion with Mrs. Windlebird's news.

Equally mechanically he unfolded it and glanced at front page; and, as he did do, a flaring explosion of headlines smote his eye.

Out of the explosion emerged the word "WILD-CATS".

"Why!" he exclaimed. "There's columns about Wild-cats on the front page here!"

"Yes?" Mrs. Windlebird's voice sounded strangely dull and toneless. Her eyes were still closed.

Roland took in the headlines with starting eyes.

THE WILD-CAT REEF GOLD-MINE

ANOTHER KLONDIKE

FRENZIED SCENES ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE

BROKERS FIGHT FOR SHARES

RECORD BOOM

UNPRECEDENTED RISE IN PRICES

Shorn of all superfluous adjectives and general journalistic exuberance, what the paper had to announce to its readers was this:

The "special commissioner" sent out by The _Financial Argus_ to make an exhaustive examination of the Wild-cat Reef Mine--with the amiable view, no doubt, of exploding Mr. Geoffrey Windlebird once and for all with the confiding British public--has found, to his unbounded astonishment, that there are vast quant.i.ties of gold in the mine.

The discovery of the new reef, the largest and richest, it is stated, since the famous Mount Morgan, occurred with dramatic appropriateness on the very day of his arrival. We need scarcely remind our readers that, until that moment, Wild-cat Reef shares had reached a very low figure, and only a few optimists retained their faith in the mine. As the largest holder, Mr. Windlebird is to be heartily congratulated on this new addition to his fortune.

The publication of the expert's report in The _Financial Argus_ has resulted in a boom in Wild-cats, the like of which can seldom have been seen on the Stock Exchange. From something like one shilling and sixpence per bundle the one pound shares have gone up to nearly ten pounds a share, and even at this latter figure people were literally fighting to secure them.

The world swam about Roland. He was stupefied and even terrified. The very atmosphere seemed foggy. So far as his reeling brain was capable of thought, he figured that he was now worth about two hundred thousand pounds.

"Oh, Mrs. Windlebird," he cried, "It's all right after all."

Mrs. Windlebird sat back in her chair without answering.

"It's all right for every one," screamed Roland joyfully. "Why, if I've made a couple of hundred thousand, what must Mr. Windlebird have netted.

It says here that he is the largest holder. He must have pulled off the biggest thing of his life."

He thought for a moment.

"The chap I'm sorry for," he said meditatively, "is Mr. Windlebird's pal. You know. The fellow whom Mr. Windlebird persuaded to sell all his shares to me."

A faint moan escaped from his hostess's pale lips. Roland did not hear it. He was reading the cricket news.

THE EPISODE OF THE THEATRICAL VENTURE

Third of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial Review_, July 1916]

It was one of those hard, nubbly rolls. The best restaurants charge you sixpence for having the good sense not to eat them. It hit Roland Bleke with considerable vehemence on the bridge of the nose. For the moment Roland fancied that the roof of the Regent Grill-room must have fallen in; and, as this would automatically put an end to the party, he was not altogether sorry. He had never been to a theatrical supper-party before, and within five minutes of his arrival at the present one he had become afflicted with an intense desire never to go to a theatrical supper-party again. To be a success at these gay gatherings one must possess dash; and Roland, whatever his other sterling qualities, was a little short of dash.

The young man on the other side of the table was quite nice about it.

While not actually apologizing, he went so far as to explain that it was "old Gerry" whom he had had in his mind when he started the roll on its course. After a glance at old Gerry--a chinless child of about nineteen--Roland felt that it would be churlish to be angry with a young man whose intentions had been so wholly admirable. Old Gerry had one of those faces in which any alteration, even the comparatively limited one which a roll would be capable of producing, was bound to be for the better. He smiled a sickly smile and said that it didn't matter.

The charming creature who sat on his a.s.sailant's left, however, took a more serious view of the situation.

"Sidney, you make me tired," she said severely. "If I had thought you didn't know how to act like a gentleman I wouldn't have come here with you. Go away somewhere and throw bread at yourself, and ask Mr. Bleke to come and sit by me. I want to talk to him."

That was Roland's first introduction to Miss Billy Verepoint.

"I've been wanting to have a chat with you all the evening, Mr. Bleke,"

she said, as Roland blushingly sank into the empty chair. "I've heard such a lot about you."

What Miss Verepoint had heard about Roland was that he had two hundred thousand pounds and apparently did not know what to do with it.

"In fact, if I hadn't been told that you would be here, I shouldn't have come to this party. Can't stand these gatherings of nuts in May as a general rule. They bore me stiff."

Roland hastily revised his first estimate of the theatrical profession.

Shallow, empty-headed creatures some of them might be, no doubt, but there were exceptions. Here was a girl of real discernment--a thoughtful student of character--a girl who understood that a man might sit at a supper-party without uttering a word and might still be a man of parts.

"I'm afraid you'll think me very outspoken--but that's me all over. All my friends say, 'Billy Verepoint's a funny girl: if she likes any one she just tells them so straight out; and if she doesn't like any one she tells them straight out, too.'"

"And a very admirable trait," said Roland, enthusiastically.

Miss Verepoint sighed. "P'raps it is," she said pensively, "but I'm afraid it's what has kept me back in my profession. Managers don't like it: they think girls should be seen and not heard."

Roland's blood boiled. Managers were plainly a dastardly crew.

"But what's the good of worrying," went on Miss Verepoint, with a brave but hollow laugh. "Of course, it's wearing, having to wait when one has got as much ambition as I have; but they all tell me that my chance is bound to come some day."

The intense mournfulness of Miss Verepoint's expression seemed to indicate that she antic.i.p.ated the arrival of the desired day not less than sixty years hence. Roland was profoundly moved. His chivalrous nature was up in arms. He fell to wondering if he could do anything to help this victim of managerial unfairness. "You don't mind my going on about my troubles, do you?" asked Miss Verepoint, solicitously. "One so seldom meets anybody really sympathetic."

Roland babbled fervent a.s.surances, and she pressed his hand gratefully.

"I wonder if you would care to come to tea one afternoon," she said.

"Oh, rather!" said Roland. He would have liked to put it in a more polished way but he was almost beyond speech.

"Of course, I know what a busy man you are----"