'I hang about for whole days doing literally nothing. What _should_ I do? I'm not the man for books; I can't get much sport nowadays; I don't care for billiards. I want to have an axe in my hand!'

Gesticulating carelessly, he swept a wine-gla.s.s off the table.

'There--d.a.m.n it! shows we've sat long enough. Come and talk to Sibyl, and let her give you a cup of tea. You never see her--never; yet she thinks better of you than of any other man we know. Come, let's get out of this beastly air. The place reeks of onions.'

They went to Oxford and Cambridge Mansions, where Rolfe spent the time until he had to leave for his appointment with Cecil Morphew. Sibyl was very kind, but gently reproachful. Why had Alma forsaken her? Why did Harvey himself never drop in?

'I'm often quite lonely, Mr. Rolfe, and as one result of it I'm getting learned. Look at these books. Won't you give me a word of admiration?'

There was a volume of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, one of Symonds's 'Renaissance', Benvenuto's 'Memoirs' in the original.

'I can't help clinging to the old world,' she said sweetly. 'Hugh forgives me, like a good boy; and you, I know, not only forgive, but sympathise.'

Of course, not a word pa.s.sed with reference to Hugh Carnaby's business; Redgrave's name was not mentioned. Sibyl, one felt, would decline to recognise, in her own drawing-room, the gross necessities of life. Had bankruptcy been impending, she would have ignored it with the same perfection of repose. An inscrutable woman, who could look and smile at one without conveying the faintest suggestion of her actual thoughts.

On his way to the club, Harvey puzzled over what seemed to him Redgrave's singular behaviour. Why should a man in that position volunteer pecuniary aid to an obscure and struggling firm? Could it be genuine friendship for Hugh Carnaby? That sounded most improbable.

Perhaps Redgrave, like the majority of people in his world, appeared much wealthier than he really was, and saw in Mackintosh's business a reasonable hope of profit. In that case, and if the concern began to flourish, might not an older friend of Carnaby's find lucrative employment for his capital?

He had always thought with uttermost contempt of the man who allows himself to be gripped, worried, dragged down, by artificial necessities. Was he himself to become a victim of this social disease?

Was he, resistless, to be drawn into the muddy whirlpool, to spin round and round among gibbering phantoms, abandoning himself with a grin of inane conceit, or clutching in desperation at futile hopes? He remembered his tranquil life between the mountains and the sea; his earlier freedom, wandering in the sunlight of silent lands. Surely there needed but a little common-sense, a little decision, to save himself from this rushing current. One word to Alma--would it not suffice? But of all things he dreaded to incur the charge of meanness, of selfishness. That had ever been his weak point: in youth, well-nigh a cause of ruin; in later life, impelling him to numberless insincerities and follies.

However, the danger as yet only threatened. He was solvent; he had still a reserve. It behoved him merely to avoid the risks of speculation, and to check, in natural, un.o.btrusive ways, that tendency to extravagance of living which was nowadays universal. Could he not depend upon himself for this moderate manliness?

Cecil Morphew, though differing in all other respects from Hugh Carnaby, showed a face which, like Hugh's, was growing prematurely old; a fatigued complexion, sunken eyes; an expression mingled of discontent and eagerness, now furtive, now sanguine, yet losing the worse traits in a still youthful smile as he came forward to meet his friend. Year after year he clung to the old amorous hope, but he no longer spoke of it with the same impulsive frankness; he did not shun the subject--brought it, indeed, voluntarily forward, but with a shamefaced hesitance. His declaration in a letter, not long ago, that he was unworthy of any good woman's love, pointed to something which had had its share in the obvious smirching of his character; something common enough, no doubt; easily divined by Harvey Rolfe, though he could not learn how far the man's future was compromised. Today Morphew began with talk of a hopeful tenor. He had got hold of a little money; he had conceived a project for making more. When the progress of their eating and drinking cleared the way for confidential disclosures, Morphew began to hint at his scheme.

'You've heard me speak of Denbow?' This was a man who had given him lessons in photography; a dealer in photographic apparatus, with a shop in Westminster Bridge Road. 'He's a very decent fellow, but it's all up with him. His wife drinks, and he has lost money in betting, and now he wants to clear out--to sell his business and get away. He came to me to apologise for spoiling some negatives--he does a little printing for me now and then and told me what he meant to do. Did I know of anyone likely to take his shop?'

Harvey laughed.

'You're in with a queer lot of people, it seems to me.'

'Oh, Denbow is all but a gentleman, I a.s.sure you. He was educated at Charterhouse, but made a fool of himself, I believe, in the common way.

But about his business. I've seen a good deal of it, going in and out, and talking with them, and I know as much about photography as most amateurs--you'll admit that, Rolfe?'

It was true that he had attained more than ordinary skill with the camera. Indeed, but for this resource, happily discovered in the days of his hopelessness, he would probably have sunk out of sight before now.

'Denbow's salesman is a thoroughly honest and capable fellow--Hobcraft, his name. He's been at the shop three or four years, and would be only too glad to carry on the business, but he can't raise money, and Denbow must have cash down. Now the fact is, I want to buy that business myself.'

'I see. What does the man ask for it?'

Morphew fidgeted a little.

'Well, just at present there isn't much stock--nothing like what there ought to be. Denbow has been coming down the hill; he's stopped himself only just in time. When I first knew him he was doing reasonably well.

It's a good position for that kind of shop. Swarms of men, you know, go backwards and forwards along the Westminster Bridge Road, and just the kind of men, lots of them, that take up photography--the better kind of clerk, and the man of business who lives in the south suburbs. And photography is going ahead so. I have all sorts of ideas. One might push the printing branch of the business--and have dark rooms for amateurs--and hit on a new hand-camera--and perhaps even start a paper, call it _Camera Notes_, or something of that kind. Don't smile and look sceptical----'

'Not at all. It seems to me the best suggestion I've heard from you yet.'

'Think so? I'm awfully glad of that. You know, Rolfe, a fellow like myself--decent family, public school, and that kind of thing--naturally fights shy of shopkeeping. But I've got to the point that I don't care what I do, if only it'll bring me a steady income in an honest way. I ought to be able to make several hundreds a year, even at starting, out of that business.'

'Have you spoken of it in the usual quarter?'

'No, I haven't.' Cecil's countenance fell. 'I should if I made a successful start. But I've talked of so many things, I'm ashamed. And she mightn't quite understand; perhaps she would think I was going down--down----'

'How is her father?'

'Neither better nor worse. That man will take another ten years over his dying--see if he doesn't. Well, we've got used to it. We're neither of us young any longer; we've lost the best part of our lives. And all for what? Because we hadn't money enough to take a house three times bigger than we needed! Two lives wasted because we couldn't feed fifty other people for whom we didn't care a d.a.m.n! Doesn't it come to that?'

'No doubt. What does Denbow ask?'

'For the stock, two hundred pounds; shop-fittings, fifty; business as it stands, say three hundred. The rent is ninety-five. Floor above the shop let to a family, who pay twenty-four shillings a week--a substantial set-off against the rent; but I should like to get rid of the people, and use the whole house for business purposes. There's three years of Denbow's lease to run, but this, he says, the landlord would be willing to convert into a seven years' lease to a new tenant.

Then one must allow something for repairs and so on at the fresh start.

Well, with purchase of a little new stock, say another hundred and fifty pounds. Roughly speaking, I ought to have about five hundred pounds to settle the affair.'

'And you have the money?'

'Not quite; I've got--well, I may say three hundred. I'm not speaking of my own private income; of course, that goes on as usual, and isn't a penny too much for--for ordinary expenses..' He fidgeted again. 'Would you care to know how I made this bit of capital?'

'If you care to tell me.'

'Yes, I will, just to show you what one is driven to do. Two years ago I was ill--congestion of the lungs--felt sure I should die. You were in Wales then. I sent for Tripcony, to get him to make my will--he used to be a solicitor, you know, before he started the bucket-shop. When I pulled through, Trip came one day and said he had a job for me. You'll be careful, by-the-bye, not to mention this. The job was to get the City editor of a certain newspaper (a man I know very well) to print a damaging rumour about a certain company. You'll wonder how I could manage this. Well, simply because the son of the chairman of that company was a sort of friend of mine, and the City editor knew it. If I could get the paragraph inserted, Tripcony would--not pay me anything, but give me a tip to buy certain stock which he guaranteed would be rising. Well, I undertook the job, and I succeeded, and Trip was as good as his word. I bought as much as I dared--through Trip, mind you, and he wouldn't let me of the cover, which I thought suspicious, though it was only habit of business. I bought at 75, and on settling day the quotation was par. I wanted to go at it again, but Trip shook his head.

Well, I netted nearly five hundred. The most caddish affair I ever was in; but I wanted money. Stop, that's only half the story. Just at that time I met a man who wanted to start a proprietary club. He had the lease of a house near Golden Square, but not quite money enough to furnish it properly and set the club going. Well, I joined him, and put in four hundred pounds; and for a year and a half we didn't do badly.

Then there was a smash; the police raided the place one night, and my partner went before the magistrates. I trembled in my shoes, but my name was never mentioned. It only ended in a fifty-pound fine, and of course I went halves. Then we sold the club for two hundred, furniture and all, and I found myself with--what I have now, not quite three hundred.'

'My boy, you've been going it,' remarked Rolfe, with a clouded brow.

'That's what I tell you. I want to get out of all that kind of thing.

Now, how am I to get two or three hundred honestly? I think Denbow would take less than he says for cash down. But the stock, I guarantee, is worth two hundred.'

'You have the first offer?'

'Till day after tomorrow--Monday.'

'Tomorrow's Sunday--that's awkward. Never mind. If I come over in the morning, will you take me to the place, and let me look over it with you, and see both Denbow and the shopman?'

'Of course I will!' said Morphew delightedly. 'It's all aboveboard.

There's a devilish good business to be made; it depends only on the man. Why, Denbow has made as much as two hundred in a year out of printing for amateurs alone. It's his own fault that he didn't keep it up. I swear, Rolfe, that with capital and hard work and acuteness, that place can be made _the_ establishment of the kind south of the Thames.

Why, there's no reason why one shouldn't net a thousand a year in a very short time.'

'Is Denbow willing to exhibit his books?'

'Of course he is. I've seen them. It isn't speculative, you know; honest, straightforward business.'

'What part do you propose to take in it yourself?'

'Why, Denbow's part--without the betting. I shall go in for the business for all I'm worth; work day and night. And look here, Rolfe.

It isn't as if I had no security to offer. You see, I have my private income; that gives me a pull over the ordinary man of business just starting. Suppose I borrow three--four--five hundred pounds; why, I can afford to make over stock or receipts--anything in that way--to the lender. Four per cent, that's what I offer, if it's a simple loan.'

'You would keep the man--what's his name?'