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“Poor old pater!” said Amber when the girls were left alone with Lady Severn. “He is back again at one of those problems which he has set himself to solve for the good of the world. Poor old pater!”
“Old!” cried Josephine. “I never met any one so young in the whole course of my life. In his presence I feel quite mature.”
“The greatest problem that he has solved is the science of living,” said Lady Severn. “If he has not discovered the secret of perpetual youth, he has mastered the more important mystery of perpetual happiness.”
“He knows that it is best seen through another’s eye,” said Josephine.
At this point a young man with a very shiny hat in his hand was shown in. He was greeted by Amber by the name of Arthur and by the others as Mr. Galmyn. He was a somewhat low-sized youth with very fair hair breaking into curls here and there that suggested the crests of a wave blown by the wind. It was not his curls, however, but his eyes that attracted the attention of most people; for his eyes were large and delicately blue. Sentimentalists who sat opposite him in an omnibus—an omnibus is full of sentimental people, six on each side—were accustomed to see a certain depth of sadness in Arthur Galmyn’s eyes. He would have felt greatly disappointed if they had failed to think them sad. He had long ago formed a definite opinion about their expression. They had caused him a great deal of thought and some trouble in his time, but he had long ago come to feel every confidence in their sadness. It was his aim to see that his life was congenially tinged with a mild melancholy.
He quoted from “The Lotus Eaters” and tried to realise a life “in which it always seemed afternoon.”
He took tea punctually at five.
“If you please,” he said. “I know that the tea leaves are never allowed to remain in your tea-pot. I have no disquieting recollection of your tea-pot, Amber. And a cake—one of the hot ones, Miss West. They have no currants. I know that I shall never run the chance of coming in personal contact with a currant, change you your cakes never so often. I found myself confronted with a currant without a moment’s warning a few days ago at Lady March’s. I was saddened. And I thought I knew her tea-cakes so well. I felt for some days as if I had heard of a dear friend’s committing a forgery—as if I had come across you suddenly in the Park wearing mauve, instead of pink, Amber.”
“It does tinge one’s life with melancholy. Have you made any money to-day?” said Amber in one breath.
He drank his cup of tea and bit off a segment from the circle of the tea cake, then he looked earnestly at the tips of his fingers. Two of them were shiny.
“I’ve not done badly,” he said. “I made about eight pounds. It doesn’t seem much, does it? But that eight pounds is on the right side of the ledger, and that’s something.”
“It’s excellent,” said Lady Severn.
“I consider it most praiseworthy if you made it by fair dealing,” said Josephine.
“Oh, Joe, don’t discourage him so early in his career,” cried Amber.
Arthur Galmyn finished the tea in his cup and laid it thoughtfully before Amber to be refilled.
“It’s quite delicious,” he said. “Quite delicious. I wonder if anything is quite fair in the way of making money—except the tables at Monte Carlo: there’s no cheating done there.”
“That’s what I wonder too,” said Josephine.
“Anyway I’ve only made eight pounds to-day—there’s not much cheating in eight pounds, is there, Miss West?” said Mr. Galmyn.
“Everything must have a beginning,” said Miss West.
“Don’t be discouraged, Arthur,” said Amber. “If you only continue on this system I’ve laid down for you you’ll make plenty of money, and what’s better still you will become reformed.”
“I’ve given up poetry already,” said he, in the sad tone that one adopts in speaking of one’s pleasant vices which one is obliged to relinquish through the tyranny of years.
“That’s a step in the right direction,” said Amber. “Oh, I’ve no doubt as to your future, Arthur. But you must study hard—oh, yes, you must study hard.”
“So I do: I can tell you the closing price of all Home Rails to-day without referring to a list.”
“Really? Well, you are progressing. What about Industrials?” said Amber.
“I’m leaving over Industrials for another week,” he replied. “I’ve given all my attention to Home Rails during the past fortnight. I dare say if I don’t break down under the strain I shall go through a course of Industrials inside another week, and then go on to Kaffirs.”
“It’s at Industrials that the money is to be made, you must remember,” said Amber. “Let me enforce upon you once more the non-speculative business—don’t think of coups. Aim only at a half per cent, of a rise, and take advantage of even the smallest rise.”
“That’s how I made my eight pounds to-day,” said he. “You see when things were very flat in the morning there came the report of a great British victory. I knew that it wasn’t true, but half a dozen things went up ten shillings or so and I unloaded—unloaded. It’s so nice to have those words pat; it makes you feel that you’re in the swim of the thing. If I only knew what contango meant, I think I could make an impressive use of that word also.”
At this point another visitor was announced. His name was Mr. William Bateman. He was a bright looking man of perhaps a year or two over thirty, and though he was close upon six feet in height he probably would have ridden under ten stone, so earnest was the attention that he had given to his figure.
He would not take any tea.
We have been talking shop as usual, Mr. Bateman,” said Lady Severn. “I wonder if there’s another drawing-room in London where shop and shop only is talked!”
“To say that shop is talked in a drawing-room is only another way of saying that the people in that drawing-room never cease to be interesting,” said Amber. “So long as people talk of what they know they are interesting and shop is the shortest way of describing what people understand. So how is your shop, Mr. Bateman?”
