A Gamble with Life Part 66

"Please don't," and Madeline rose from her chair and began to pull on her gloves.

That evening, in the privacy of her own room, Madeline debated seriously with herself whether or not she should accept the Harveys' invitation.

For many things, she would like to winter in a more genial clime. New York was by no means an ideal city when the thermometer was at zero, and the streets were blocked with snow. In fact, it was not an ideal city under any circ.u.mstances, and but that most of her friends were there, she would gladly pitch her tent somewhere else.

There was the further fact to be considered, that the departure of the Harveys meant the departure of the people whom she liked best of all, and New York would be terribly dull when their mansion was no longer open to her to run in and out as she liked.

"I think I'll accept their invitation," she said to herself. "It will be a change, and it's awfully good of them to ask me." Then she hesitated and looked abstractedly out of the window.

"It will mean an absence of six months at least," she went on, after a long pause, and she gave a little sigh and withdrew her eyes from the window.

"It is curious that my thoughts will so constantly turn in the same direction," she thought, with another little sigh. "I surely don't owe him any more now. I have paid my debt as far as any human being can pay it. Why cannot I put the whole episode out of my life?"

A ring came to the door-bell after awhile, and her old solicitor was shown in.

"I am so glad you have come," she said, with a smile. "I want you to help me decide a question that I'm unable to decide for myself."

"I'm always at your service," he said, genially; "but what's troubling your little head now?"

"The Harveys want me to go with them on a yachting cruise."

"Well?"

"I can't make up my mind whether to go or not."

"What is there to keep you here?"

"Nothing."

"Then why hesitate?"

"I don't know. I'm growing to like my little home very much."

"You mustn't become a hermit. My advice is go."

"You really mean that?"

"I do. Mind you, I shall miss you very much, but all the same, such a chance may not come to you again."

"Then I'll take your advice."

"By the bye, I heard news this morning of your Cornish friend."

"Sir Charles Tregony?"

"No; the other one."

"You mean----"

"The same! He's evidently done well out of the money you lent him."

"Yes?"

"I've been following him up as well as I could ever since that day he called on me."

"So you've told me before."

"But a man was in my office this morning who knows him, who lives in Reboth, in fact, and who has watched him closely."

"Well?"

"He says if he keeps on he'll be one of the most remarkable men in the State of Pennsylvania."

"Indeed?"

"That's what he says. At the beginning, the financiers swarmed round him like bees. But he wasn't to be had. He just went his own way. Slow according to American notions, but that's the man. Level-headed as they make 'em, and honest to a fault."

"A man can't be too honest, surely?"

"Well, business is so rushed in these days that a man has no time to look up the commandments before he decides. If he don't seize his chance on the dot it's gone."

"Better the chance should go than that he should lose his honour."

"Well, that is a very fine sentiment, no doubt--a very fine sentiment.

And your friend, it seems, acts up to it."

"And what has he lost in consequence?"

"Heaps they say. Not permanently, perhaps; for as it happens, the iron is of better quality than was expected. But he might have made his pile right off without trouble or risk."

"And without giving any honest _quid pro quo_?"

"Those who speculate must take their chance, my child. If people are willing to take risks, why let 'em. Suppose there had been no iron at all?"

"Well, what then?"

"Why, he would have been the poorer by hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"That might not be to his disadvantage. 'A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth.'"

"Most people think it does, at any rate."

"But you know majorities are nearly always wrong."

"Excuse me, I claim no such knowledge. I know that majorities rule."

"And rule oppressively frequently."

"That may be so. Human nature is essentially tyrannical. Give a man power, and, without great grace, he becomes a tyrant right off."