A Woman Intervenes - Robert Barr (good book recommendations TXT) 📗

am aware of that.'

'And you know that a great deal is going to depend upon your report?'

'I suppose that is so, and I hope the syndicate will find my report at least an honest and thorough one.'

'Is the colleague who was with you also on board?'

'Yes, he is here.'

'He, then, was the accountant who was sent out?'

'Yes, and he is a man who does his business very thoroughly, and I think the syndicate will be satisfied with his work.'

'And do you not think they will be satisfied with yours also? I am sure you did your work conscientiously.'

Kenyon almost blushed as the young woman made this remark, but she looked intently at him, and he saw that her thoughts were not on him, but on the large interests he represented.

'Were you favourably impressed with the Ottawa as a mining region?' she asked.

'Very much so,' he answered, and, anxious to turn the conversation away from his own report, he said: 'I was so much impressed with it that I secured the option of a mine there for myself.'

'Oh! do you intend to buy one of the mines there?'

Kenyon laughed.

'No, I am no capitalist seeking investment for my money, but I saw that the mine contained possibilities of producing a great deal of money for those who possess it. It is very much more valuable, in my opinion, than the owners themselves suspect; so I secured an option upon it for three months, and hope when I reach England to form a company to take it up.'

'Well, I am sure,' said the young lady, 'if you are confident that the mine is a good one, you could see no one who would help you more in that way than my father. He has been looking at a brewery business he thought of investing in, but which he has concluded to have nothing to do with, so he will be anxious to find something reliable in its place. How much would be required for the purchase of the mine you mention?'

'I was thinking of asking fifty thousand pounds for it,' said Kenyon, flushing, as he thought of his own temerity in more than doubling the price of the mine.

Wentworth and he had estimated the probable value of the mine, and had concluded that even selling it at that price--which would give them thirty thousand pounds to divide between them--they were selling a mine that was really worth very much more, and would soon pay tremendous dividends on the fifty thousand pounds. He expected the young woman to be impressed by the amount, and was, therefore, very much surprised when she said:

'Fifty thousand pounds! Is that all? Then I am afraid my father would have nothing to do with it. He only deals with large businesses, and a company with a capitalization of fifty thousand pounds I am sure he would not look at.'

'You talk of fifty thousand pounds,' said Kenyon, 'as if it were a mere trifle. To me it seems an immense fortune. I only wish I had it, or half of it.'

'You are not rich, then?' said the girl, with apparent interest.

'No,' replied the young man. 'Far otherwise.'

At that moment the elder Mr. Longworth appeared in the door of the companion-way, and looked up and down the deck.

'Oh, here you are,' he said, as his daughter sprang from her chair.

'Father,' she cried, 'let me introduce to you Mr. Kenyon, who is the mining expert sent out by our syndicate to look at the Ottawa mines.'

'I am pleased to meet you,' said the elder gentleman.

The capitalist sat down beside the mining engineer, and began, somewhat to Kenyon's embarrassment, to talk of the London Syndicate.


CHAPTER VI.


A few mornings later Wentworth worked his way, with much balancing and grasping of stanchions, along the deck, for the ship rolled fearfully, but the person he sought was nowhere visible. He thought he would go into the smoking-room, but changed his mind at the door, and turned down the companion-way to the main saloon. The tables had been cleared of the breakfast belongings, but on one of the small tables a white cloth had been laid, and at this spot of purity in the general desert of red plush sat Miss Brewster, who was complacently ordering what she wanted from a steward, who did not seem at all pleased in serving one who had disregarded the breakfast-hour, to the disarrangement of all saloon rules. The chief steward stood by a door and looked disapprovingly at the tardy guest. It was almost time to lay the tables for lunch, and the young woman was as calmly ordering her breakfast as if she had been the first person at table.

She looked up brightly at Wentworth, and smiled as he approached her.

'I suppose,' she began, 'I'm dreadfully late, and the steward looks as if he would like to scold me. How awfully the ship is rolling! Is there a storm?'

'No. She seems to be doing this sort of thing for amusement. Wants to make it interesting for the unfortunate passengers who are not good sailors, I suppose. She's doing it, too. There's scarcely anyone on deck.'

'Dear me! I thought we were having a dreadful storm. Is it raining?'

'No. It's a beautiful sunshiny day; without much wind either, in spite of all this row.'

'I suppose you have had your breakfast long ago?'

'So long since that I am beginning to look forward with pleasant anticipation to lunch.'

'Oh dear! I had no idea I was so late as that. Perhaps _you_ had better scold me. Somebody ought to do it, and the steward seems a little afraid.'

'You over-estimate my courage. I am a little afraid, too.'

'Then you _do_ think I deserve it?'

'I didn't say that, nor do I think it. I confess, however, that up to this moment I felt just a trifle lonely.'

'Just a trifle! Well, that _is_ flattery. How nicely you English do turn a compliment! Just a trifle!'

'I believe, as a race, we do not venture much into compliment making at all. We leave that for the polite foreigner. He would say what I tried to say a great deal better than I did, of course, but he would not mean half so much.'

'Oh, that's very nice, Mr. Wentworth. No foreigner could have put it nearly so well. Now, what about going on deck?'

'Anywhere, if you let me accompany you.'

'I shall be most delighted to have you. I won't say merely a trifle delighted.'

'Ah! Haven't you forgiven that remark yet?'

'There's nothing to forgive, and it is quite too delicious to forget. I shall never forget it.'

'I believe that you are very cruel at heart, Miss Brewster.'

The young woman gave him a curious side-look, but did not answer. She gathered the wraps she had taken from her cabin, and, handing them to him before he had thought of offering to take them, she led the way to the deck. He found their chairs side by side, and admired the intelligence of the deck-steward, who seemed to understand which chairs to place together. Miss Jennie sank gracefully into her own, and allowed him to adjust the wraps around her.

'There,' she said, 'that's very nicely done; as well as the deck-steward himself could do it, and I am sure it is impossible to pay you a more graceful compliment than that. So few men know how to arrange one comfortably in a steamer chair.'

'You speak as though you had vast experience in steamer life, and yet you told me this was your first voyage.'

'It is. But it doesn't take a woman more than a day to see that the average man attends to such little niceties very clumsily. Now just tuck in the corner out of sight. There! Thank you, ever so much. And would you be kind enough to--Yes, that's better. And this other wrap so. Oh, that is perfect. What a patient man you are, Mr. Wentworth!'

'Yes, Miss Brewster. You _are_ a foreigner. I can see that now. Your professed compliment was hollow. You said I did it perfectly, and then immediately directed me how to do it.'

'Nothing of the kind. You did it well, and I think you ought not to grudge me the pleasure of adding my own little improvements.'

'Oh, if you put it in that way, I will not. Now, before I sit down, tell me what book I can get that will interest you. The library contains a very good assortment.'

'I don't think I care about reading. Sit down and talk. I suppose I am too indolent to-day. I thought, when I came on board, that I would do a lot of reading, but I believe the sea-air makes one lazy. I must confess I feel entirely indifferent to mental improvement.'

'You evidently do not think my conversation will be at all worth listening to.'

'How quick you are to pervert my meaning! Don't you see that I think your conversation better worth listening to than the most interesting or improving book you can choose from the library? Really, in trying to avoid giving you cause for making such a remark, I have apparently stumbled into a worse error. I was just going to say I would like your conversation much better than a book, when I thought you would take that as a reflection on your reading. If you take me up so sharply I will sit here and say nothing. Now then, talk!'

'What shall I say?'

'Oh, if I told you what to say I should be doing the talking. Tell me about yourself. What do you do in London?'

'I work hard. I am an accountant.'

'And what is an accountant? What does he do? Keep accounts?'

'Some of them do; I do not. I see, rather, that accounts which other people keep have been correctly kept.'

'Aren't they always correctly kept? I thought that was what book-keepers were hired for.'

'If books were always correctly kept there would be little for us to do; but it happens, unfortunately for some, but fortunately for us, that people occasionally do not keep their accounts accurately.'

'And can you always find that out if you examine the books?'

'Always.'

'Can't a man make up his accounts so that no one can tell there is anything wrong?'

'The belief that such a thing can be done has placed many a poor wretch in prison. It has been tried often enough.'

'I am sure they can do it in the States. I have read of it being done and continued for years. Men have made off with great sums of money by falsifying the books, and no one found it out until the one who did it died or ran away.'

'Nevertheless, if an expert accountant had been called in, he would have found out very soon that something was wrong, and just where the wrong was, and how much.'

'I didn't think such cleverness possible. Have you ever discovered anything like that?'

'I have.'

'What is done when such a thing is discovered?'

'That depends upon circumstances. Usually a policeman is called in.'

'Why, it's like being a detective. I wish you would tell me about some of the cases you have had. Don't make me