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<h2> CHAPTER XXXIII </h2>
<p>Tembarom did not look as though he had slept particularly well, Miss
Alicia thought, when they met the next morning; but when she asked him
whether he had been disappointed in his last night's experiment, he
answered that he had not. The experiment had come out all right, but
Strangeways had been a good deal worked up, and had not been able to sleep
until daylight. Sir Ormsby Galloway was to arrive in the afternoon, and
he'd probably give him some-thing quieting. Had the coming downstairs
seemed to help him to recall anything? Miss Alicia naturally inquired.
Tembarom thought it had. He drove to Stone Hover and spent the morning
with the duke; he even lunched with him. He returned in time to receive
Sir Ormsby Galloway, however, and until that great personage left, they
were together in Mr. Strangeways' rooms.</p>
<p>“I guess I shall get him up to London to the place where Sir Ormsby wants
him,” he said rather nervously, after dinner. “I'm not going to miss any
chances. If he'll go, I can get him away quietly some time when I can fix
it so there's no one about to worry him.”</p>
<p>She felt that he had no inclination to go much into detail. He had never
had the habit of entering into the details connected with his strange
charge. She believed it was because he felt the subject too abnormal not
to seem a little awesome to her sympathetic timidity. She did not ask
questions because she was afraid she could not ask them intelligently. In
fact, the knowledge that this unknown man was living through his struggle
with his lost past in the remote rooms of the west wing, almost as though
he were a secret prisoner, did seem a little awesome when one awoke in the
middle of the dark night and thought of it.</p>
<p>During the passage of the next few weeks, Tembarom went up to London
several times. Once he seemed called there suddenly, as it was only during
dinner that he told her he was going to take a late train, and should
leave the house after she had gone to bed. She felt as though something
important must have happened, and hoped it was nothing disturbing.</p>
<p>When he had said that Captain Palliser would return to visit them, her
private impression, despite his laugh, had been that it must surely be
some time before this would occur. But a little more than three weeks
later he appeared, preceded only half an hour by a telegram asking whether
he might not spend a night with them on his way farther north. He could
not at all understand why the telegram, which he said he had sent the day
before, had been delayed.</p>
<p>A certain fatigued haggardness in his countenance caused Miss Alicia to
ask whether he had been ill, and he admitted that he had at least not been
well, as a result of long and too hurried journeys, and the strenuousness
of extended and profoundly serious interviews with his capitalist and
magnates.</p>
<p>“No man can engineer gigantic schemes to success without feeling the
reaction when his load drops from his shoulders,” he remarked.</p>
<p>“You've carried it quite through?” inquired Tembarom.</p>
<p>“We have set on foot one of the largest, most substantially capitalized
companies in the European business world,” Palliser replied, with the
composure which is almost indifference.</p>
<p>“Good!” said Tembarom cheerfully.</p>
<p>He watched his guest a good deal during the day. He was a bad color for a
man who had just steered clear of all shoals and reached the highest point
of success. He had a haggard eye as well as a haggard face. It was a
terrified eye when its desperate determination to hide its terrors dropped
from it for an instant, as a veil might drop. A certain restlessness was
manifest in him, and he talked more than usual. He was going to make a
visit in Northumberland to an elderly lady of great possessions. It was to
be vaguely gathered that she was somewhat interested in the great company—the
Cedric. She was a remarkable old person who found a certain agreeable
excitement in dabbling in stocks. She was rich enough to be in a position
to regard it as a sort of game, and he had been able on several occasions
to afford her entertainment. He would remain a few days, and spend his
time chiefly in telling her the details of the great scheme and the manner
in which they were to be developed.</p>
<p>“If she can play with things that way, she'll be sure to want stock in
it,” Tembarom remarked.</p>
<p>“If she does, she must make up her mind quickly,” Palliser smiled, “or she
will not be able to get it. It is not easy to lay one's hands on even
now.”</p>
<p>Tembarom thought of certain speculators of entirely insignificant standing
of whom he had chanced to see and hear anecdotes in New York. Most of them
were youths of obscure origin who sold newspapers or blacked boots, or
“swapped” articles the value of which lay in the desire they could excite
in other persons to possess them. A popular method known as “bluff” was
their most trusted weapon, and even at twelve and fifteen years of age
Tembarom had always regarded it as singularly obvious. He always detested
“bluff,” whatsoever its disguise, and was rather mystified by its
ingenious faith in itself.</p>
<p>“He's got badly stung,” was his internal comment as he sucked at his pipe
and smiled urbanely at Palliser across the room as they sat together.
“He's come here with some sort of deal on that he knows he couldn't work
with any one but just such a fool as he thinks I am. I guess,” he added in
composed reflectiveness, “I don't really know how big a fool I do look.”</p>
<p>Whatsoever the deal was, he would be likely to let it be known in time.</p>
<p>“He'll get it off his chest if he's going away to-morrow,” decided
Tembarom. “If there's anything he's found out, he'll use it. If it doesn't
pan out as he thinks it will he'll just float away to his old lady.”</p>
<p>He gave Palliser every chance, talking to him and encouraging him to talk,
even asking him to let him look over the prospectus of the new company and
explain details to him, as he was going to explain them to the old lady in
Northumberland. He opened up avenues; but for a time Palliser made no
attempt to stroll down them. His walk would be a stroll, Tembarom knew,
being familiar with his methods. His aspect would be that of a man but
little concerned. He would be capable of a slightly rude coldness if he
felt that concern on his part was in any degree counted as a factor.
Tembarom was aware, among other things, that innocent persons would feel
that it was incumbent upon them to be very careful in their treatment of
him. He seemed to be thinking things over before he decided upon the
psychological moment at which he would begin, if he began. When a man had
a good deal to lose or to win, Tembarom realized that he would be likely
to hold back until he felt something like solid ground under him.</p>
<p>After Miss Alicia had left them for the night, perhaps he felt, as a
result of thinking the matter over, that he had reached a foothold of a
firmness at least somewhat to be depended upon.</p>
<p>“What a change you have made in that poor woman's life!” he said, walking
to the side-table and helping himself to a brandy and soda. “What a
change!”</p>
<p>“It struck me that a change was needed just about the time I dropped in,”
answered his host.</p>
<p>“All the same,” suggested Palliser, tolerantly, “you were immensely
generous. She wasn't entitled to expect it, you know.”</p>
<p>“She didn't expect anything, not a darned thing,” said Tembarom. “That was
what hit me.”</p>
<p>Palliser smiled a cold, amiable smile. His slim, neatly fitted person
looked a little shrunken and less straight than was its habit, and its
slackness suggested itself as being part of the harry and fatigue which
made his face and eyes haggard under his pale, smooth hair.</p>
<p>“Do you purpose to provide for the future of all your indigent relatives
even to the third and fourth generation, my dear chap?” he inquired.</p>
<p>“I won't refuse till I'm asked, anyhow,” was the answer.</p>
<p>“Asked!” Palliser repeated. “I'm one of them, you know, and Lady Mallowe
is another. There are lots of us, when we come out of our holes. If it's
only a matter of asking, we might all descend on you.”</p>
<p>Tembarom, smiling, wondered whether they hadn't descended already, and
whether the descent had so far been all that they had anticipated.</p>
<p>Palliser strolled down his opened avenue with an incidental air which was
entirely creditable to his training of himself. T. Tembarom acknowledged
that much.</p>
<p>“You are too generous,” said Palliser. “You are the sort of fellow who
will always need all he has, and more. The way you go among the villagers!
You think you merely slouch about and keep it quiet, but you don't. You've
set an example no other landowner can expect to live up to, or intends to.
It's too lavish. It's pernicious, dear chap. I have heard all about the
cottage you are doing over for Pearson and his bride. You had better
invest in the Cedric.”</p>
<p>Tembarom wanted him to go on, if there was anything in it. He made his
face look as he knew Palliser hoped it would look when the psychological
moment came. Its expression was not a deterrent; in fact, it had a
character not unlikely to lead an eager man, or one who was not as wholly
experienced as he believed he was, to rush down a steep hill into the sea,
after the manner of the swine in the parable.</p>
<p>Heaven knew Palliser did not mean to rush, and was not aware when the rush
began; but he had reason to be so much more eager than he professed to be
that momentarily he swerved, despite himself, and ceased to be casual.</p>
<p>“It is an enormous opportunity,” he said—“timber lands in Mexico,
you know. If you had spent your life in England, you would realize that
timber has become a desperate necessity, and that the difficulties which
exist in the way of supplying the demand are almost insuperable. These
forests are virtually boundless, and the company which controls them—”</p>
<p>“That's a good spiel!” broke in Tembarom.</p>
<p>It sounded like the crudely artless interruption of a person whose
perceptions left much to be desired. T. Tembarom knew what it sounded
like. If Palliser lost his temper, he would get over the ground faster,
and he wanted him to get over the ground.</p>
<p>“I'm afraid I don't understand,” he replied rather stiffly.</p>
<p>“There was a fellow I knew in New York who used to sell type-writers, and
he had a thing to say he used to reel off when any one looked like a
customer. He used to call it his 'spiel.'”</p>
<p>Palliser's quick glance at him asked questions, and his stiffness did not
relax itself.</p>
<p>“Is this New York chaff?” he inquired coldly.</p>
<p>“No,” Tembarom said. “You're not doing it for ten per. He was”</p>
<p>“No, not exactly,” said Palliser. “Neither would you be doing it for ten
per if you went into it.” His voice changed. He became slightly haughty.
“Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to think you might care to connect
yourself with it. You have not, of course, been in the position to
comprehend such matters.”</p>
<p>“If I was what I look like, that'd stir me up and make me feel bad,”
thought T. Tembarom, with cheerful comprehension of this, at least. “I'd
have to rush in and try to prove to him that I was as accustomed to big
business as he is, and that it didn't rattle me. The way to do it that
would come most natural would be to show I was ready to buy as big a block
of stock as any other fellow.”</p>
<p>But the expression of his face did not change. He only gave a half-awkward
sort of laugh.</p>
<p>“I guess I can learn,” he said.</p>
<p>Palliser felt the foothold become firmer. The bounder was interested, but,
after a bounder's fashion, was either nervous or imagined that a show of
hesitation looked shrewd. The slight hit made at his inexperience in
investment had irritated him and made him feel less cock-sure of himself.
A slightly offended manner might be the best weapon to rely upon.</p>
<p>“I thought you might care to have the thing made clear to you,” he
continued indifferently. “I meant to explain. You may take the chance or
leave it, as you like, of course. That is nothing to me at this stage of
the game. But, after all, we are as I said, relatives of a sort, and it is
a gigantic opportunity. Suppose we change the subject. Is that the Sunday
Earth I see by you on the table?” He leaned forward to take the paper, as
though the subject really were dropped; but, after a seemingly nervous
suck or two at his pipe, Tembarom came to his assistance. It wouldn't do
to let him quiet down too much.</p>
<p>“I'm no Van Morganbilt,” he said hesitatingly, “but I can see that it's a
big opportunity—for some one else. Let's have a look over the
prospectus again.”</p>
<p>Palliser paused in his unconcerned opening of the copy of the Sunday
Earth. His manner somewhat disgustedly implied indecision as to whether it
was worth while to allow oneself to be dropped and taken up by turns.</p>
<p>“Do you really mean that?” he asked with a certain chill of voice.</p>
<p>“Yes. I don't mind trying to catch on to what's doing in any big scheme.”</p>
<p>Palliser did not lay aside his suggestion of cold semi-reluctance more
readily than any man who knew his business would have laid it aside. His
manner at the outset was quite perfect. His sole ineptitude lay in his
feeling a too great confidence in the exact quality of his companion's
type, as he summed it up. He did not calculate on the variations from all
type sometimes provided by circumstances.</p>
<p>He produced his papers without too obvious eagerness. He spread them upon
the table, and coolly examined them himself before beginning his
explanation. There was more to explain to a foreigner and one unused to
investment than there would be to a man who was an Englishman and familiar
with the methods of large companies, he said. He went into technicalities,
so to speak, and used rapidly and lightly some imposing words and phrases,
to which T. Tembarom listened attentively, but without any special air of
illumination. He dealt with statistics and the resulting probabilities. He
made apparent the existing condition of England's inability to supply an
enormous and unceasing demand for timber. He had acquired divers excellent
methods of stating his case to the party of the second part.</p>
<p>“He made me feel as if a fellow had better hold on to a box of matches
like grim death, and that the time wasn't out of sight when you'd have to
give fifty-seven dollars and a half for a toothpick,” Tembarom afterwards
said to the duke.</p>
<p>What Tembarom was thinking as he listened to him was that he was not
getting over the ground with much rapidity, and that it was time something
was doing. He had not watched him for weeks without learning divers of his
idiosyncrasies.</p>
<p>“If he thought I wanted to know what he thinks I'd a heap rather NOT know,
he'd never tell me,” he speculated. “If he gets a bit hot in the collar,
he may let it out. Thing is to stir him up. He's lost his nerve a bit, and
he'll get mad pretty easy.”</p>
<p>He went on smoking and listening, and asking an unenlightened question now
and then, in a manner which was as far from being a deterrent as the
largely unilluminated expression of his face was.</p>
<p>“Of course money is wanted,” Palliser said at length. “Money is always
wanted, and as much when a scheme is a success as when it isn't. Good
names, with a certain character, are wanted. The fact of your inheritance
is known everywhere; and the fact that you are an American is a sort of
guaranty of shrewdness.”</p>
<p>“Is it?” said T. Tembarom. “Well,” he added slowly, “I guess Americans are
pretty good business men.”</p>
<p>Palliser thought that this was evolving upon perfectly natural lines, as
he had anticipated it would. The fellow was flattered and pleased. You
could always reach an American by implying that he was one of those who
specially illustrate enviable national characteristics.</p>
<p>He went on in smooth, casual laudation:</p>
<p>“No American takes hold of a scheme of this sort until he knows jolly well
what he's going to get out of it. You were shrewd enough,” he added
significantly, “about Hutchinson's affair. You `got in on the ground
floor' there. That was New York forethought, by Jove!”</p>
<p>Tembarom shuffled a little in his chair, and grinned a faint, pleased
grin.</p>
<p>“I'm a man of the world, my boy—the business world,” Palliser
commented, hoping that he concealed his extreme satisfaction. “I know New
York, though I haven't lived there. I'm only hoping to. Your air of
ingenuous ignorance is the cleverest thing about you,” which agreeable
implication of the fact that he had been privately observant and impressed
ought to have fetched the bounder if anything would.</p>
<p>T. Tembarom's grin was no longer faint, but spread itself. Palliser's
first impression was that he had “fetched” him. But when he answered,
though the very crudeness of his words seemed merely the result of his
betrayal into utter tactlessness by soothed vanity, there was something—a
shade of something—not entirely satisfactory in his face and nasal
twang.</p>
<p>“Well, I guess,” he said, “New York DID teach a fellow not to buy a gold
brick off every con man that came along.”</p>
<p>Palliser was guilty of a mere ghost of a start. Was there something in it,
or was he only the gross, blundering fool he had trusted to his being? He
stared at him a moment, and saw that there WAS something under the words
and behind his professedly flattered grin—something which must be
treated with a high hand.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” he exclaimed haughtily. “I don't like your tone. Do
you take ME for what you call a `con man'?”</p>
<p>“Good Lord, no!” answered Tembarom; and he looked straight at Palliser and
spoke slowly. “You're a gentleman, and you're paying me a visit. You could
no more try on a game to do me in my own house than—well, than I
could TELL you if I'd got on to you if I saw you doing it. You're a
gentleman.”</p>
<p>Palliser glared back into his infuriatingly candid eyes. He was a far cry
from being a dullard himself; he was sharp enough to “catch on” to the
revelation that the situation was not what he had thought it, the type was
more complex than he had dreamed. The chap had been playing a part; he had
absolutely been “jollying him along,” after the New York fashion. He
became pale with humiliated rage, though he knew his only defense was to
control himself and profess not to see through the trick. Until he could
use his big lever, he added to himself.</p>
<p>“Oh, I see,” he commented acridly. “I suppose you don't realize that your
figures of speech are unfortunate.”</p>
<p>“That comes of New York streets, too,” Tembarom answered with
deliberation. “But you can't live as I've lived and be dead easy—not
DEAD easy.”</p>
<p>Palliser had left his chair, and stood in contemptuous silence.</p>
<p>“You know how a fellow hates to be thought DEAD easy”—Tembarom
actually went to the insolent length of saying the words with a touch of
cheerful confidingness—“when he's NOT. And I'm not. Have another
drink.”</p>
<p>There was a pause. Palliser began to see, or thought he began to see,
where he stood. He had come to Temple Barholm because he had been driven
into a corner and had a dangerous fight before him. In anticipation of it
he had been following a clue for some time, though at the outset it had
been one of incredible slightness. Only his absolute faith in his theory
that every man had something to gain or lose, which he concealed
discreetly, had led him to it. He held a card too valuable to be used at
the beginning of a game. Its power might have lasted a long time, and
proved an influence without limit. He forbore any mental reference to
blackmail; the word was absurd. One used what fell into one's hands. If
Tembarom had followed his lead with any degree of docility, he would have
felt it wiser to save his ammunition until further pressure was necessary.
But behind his ridiculous rawness, his foolish jocularity, and his
professedly candid good humor, had been hidden the Yankee trickster who
was fool enough to think he could play his game through. Well, he could
not.</p>
<p>During the few moments' pause he saw the situation as by a photographic
flashlight. He leaned over the table and supplied himself with a fresh
brandy and soda from the tray of siphons and decanters. He gave himself
time to take the glass up in his hand.</p>
<p>“No,” he answered, “you are not `dead easy.' That's why I am going to
broach another subject to you.”</p>
<p>Tembarom was refilling his pipe.</p>
<p>“Go ahead,” he said.</p>
<p>“Who, by the way, is Mr. Strangeways?”</p>
<p>He was deliberate and entirely unemotional. So was T. Tembarom when, with
match applied to his tobacco, he replied between puffs as he lighted it:</p>
<p>“You can search me. You can search him, too, for that matter. He doesn't
know who he is himself.”</p>
<p>“Bad luck for him!” remarked Palliser, and allowed a slight pause again.
After it he added, “Did it ever strike you it might be good luck for
somebody else?”</p>
<p>“Somebody else?” Tembarom puffed more slowly, perhaps because his pipe was
lighted.</p>
<p>Palliser took some brandy in his soda.</p>
<p>“There are men, you know,” he suggested, “who can be spared by their
relatives. I have some myself, by Jove!” he added with a laugh. “You keep
him rather dark, don't you?”</p>
<p>“He doesn't like to see people.”</p>
<p>“Does he object to people seeing him? I saw him once myself.”</p>
<p>“When you threw the gravel at his window?”</p>
<p>Palliser stared contemptuously.</p>
<p>“What are you talking about? I did not throw stones at his window,” he
lied. “I'm not a school-boy.”</p>
<p>“That's so,” Tembarom admitted.</p>
<p>“I saw him, nevertheless. And I can tell you he gave me rather a start.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>Palliser half laughed again. He did not mean to go too quickly; he would
let the thing get on Tembarom's nerves gradually.</p>
<p>“Well, I'm hanged if I didn't take him for a man who is dead.”</p>
<p>“Enough to give any fellow a jolt,” Tembarom admitted again.</p>
<p>“It gave me a `jolt.' Good word, that. But it would give you a bigger one,
my dear fellow, if he was the man he looked like.”</p>
<p>“Why?” Tembarom asked laconically.</p>
<p>“He looked like Jem Temple Barholm.”</p>
<p>He saw Tembarom start. There could be no denying it.</p>
<p>“You thought that? Honest?” he said sharply, as if for a moment he had
lost his head. “You thought that?”</p>
<p>“Don't be nervous. Perhaps I couldn't have sworn to it. I did not see him
very close.”</p>
<p>T. Tembarom puffed rapidly at his pipe, and only, ejaculated:</p>
<p>“Oh!”</p>
<p>“Of course he's dead. If he wasn't,”—with a shrug of his shoulders,—“Lady
Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and the pair would be
bringing up an interesting family here.” He looked about the room, and
then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, “By George! you'd be
selling newspapers, or making them—which was it?—in New York!”</p>
<p>It was by no means unpleasing to see that he had made his hit there. T.
Tembarom swung about and walked across the room with a suddenly perturbed
expression.</p>
<p>“Say,” he put it to him, coming back, “are you in earnest, or are you just
saying it to give me a jolt?”</p>
<p>Palliser studied him. The American sharpness was not always so keen as it
sometimes seemed. His face would have betrayed his uneasiness to the
dullest onlooker.</p>
<p>“Have you any objection to my seeing him in his own room?” Palliser
inquired.</p>
<p>“It does him harm to see people,” Tembarom said, with nervous brusqueness.
“It worries him.”</p>
<p>Palliser smiled a quiet but far from agreeable smile. He enjoyed what he
put into it.</p>
<p>“Quite so; best to keep him quiet,” he returned. “Do you know what my
advice would be? Put him in a comfortable sanatorium. A lot of stupid
investigations would end in nothing, of course, but they'd be a frightful
bore.”</p>
<p>He thought it extraordinarily stupid in T. Tembarom to come nearer to him
with an anxious eagerness entirely unconcealed, if he really knew what he
was doing.</p>
<p>“Are you sure that if you saw him close you'd KNOW, so that you could
swear to him?” he demanded.</p>
<p>“You're extremely nervous, aren't you?” Palliser watched him with smiling
coolness. “Of course Jem Temple Barholm is dead; but I've no doubt that if
I saw this man of yours, I could swear he had remained dead—if I
were asked.”</p>
<p>“If you knew him well, you could make me sure. You could swear one way or
another. I want to be SURE,” said Tembarom.</p>
<p>“So should I in your place; couldn't be too sure. Well, since you ask me,
I COULD swear. I knew him well enough. He was one of my most intimate
enemies. What do you say to letting me see him?”</p>
<p>“I would if I could,” Tembarom replied, as if thinking it over. “I would
if I could.”</p>
<p>Palliser treated him to the far from pleasing smile again.</p>
<p>“But it's quite impossible at present?” he suggested. “Excitement is not
good for him, and all that sort of thing. You want time to think it over.”</p>
<p>Tembarom's slowly uttered answer, spoken as if he were still considering
the matter, was far from being the one he had expected.</p>
<p>“I want time; but that's not the reason you can't see him right now. You
can't see him because he's not here. He's gone.”</p>
<p>Then it was Palliser who started, taken totally unaware in a manner which
disgusted him altogether. He had to pull himself up.</p>
<p>“He's gone!” he repeated. “You are quicker than I thought. You've got him
safely away, have you? Well, I told you a comfortable sanatorium would be
a good idea.”</p>
<p>“Yes, you did.” T. Tembarom hesitated, seeming to be thinking it over
again. “That's so.” He laid his pipe aside because it had gone out.</p>
<p>He suddenly sat down at the table, putting his elbows on it and his face
in his hands, with a harried effect of wanting to think it over in a sort
of withdrawal from his immediate surroundings. This was as it should be.
His Yankee readiness had deserted him altogether.</p>
<p>“By Jove! you are nervous!” Palliser commented. “It's not surprising,
though. I can sympathize with you.” With a markedly casual air he himself
sat down and drew his documents toward him. “Let us talk of something
else,” he said. He preferred to be casual and incidental, if he were
allowed. It was always better to suggest things and let them sink in until
people saw the advantage of considering them and you. To manage a business
matter without open argument or too frank a display of weapons was at once
more comfortable and in better taste.</p>
<p>“You are making a great mistake in not going into this,” he suggested
amiably. “You could go in now as you went into Hutchinson's affair, `on
the ground floor.' That's a good enough phrase, too. Twenty thousand
pounds would make you a million. You Americans understand nothing less
than millions.”</p>
<p>But T. Tembarom did not take him up. He muttered in a worried way from
behind his shading hands, “We'll talk about that later.”</p>
<p>“Why not talk about it now, before anything can interfere?” Palliser
persisted politely, almost gently.</p>
<p>Tembarom sprang up, restless and excited. He had plainly been planning
fast in his temporary seclusion.</p>
<p>“I'm thinking of what you said about Lady Joan,” he burst forth. “Say,
she's gone through all this Jem Temple Barholm thing once; it about half
killed her. If any one raised false hopes for her, she'd go through it all
again. Once is enough for any woman.”</p>
<p>His effect at professing heat and strong feeling made a spark of amusement
show itself in Palliser's eye. It struck him as being peculiarly American
in its affectation of sentiment and chivalry.</p>
<p>“I see,” he said. “It's Lady Joan you're disturbed about. You want to
spare her another shock, I see. You are a considerate fellow, as well as a
man of business.”</p>
<p>“I don't want her to begin to hope if—”</p>
<p>“Very good taste on your part.” Palliser's polite approval was admirable,
but he tapped lightly on the paper after expressing it. “I don't want to
seem to press you about this, but don't you feel inclined to consider it?
I can assure you that an investment of this sort would be a good thing to
depend on if the unexpected happened. If you gave me your check now, it
would be Cedric stock to-morrow, and quite safe. Suppose you—”</p>
<p>“I—I don't believe you were right—about what you thought.” The
sharp-featured face was changing from pale to red. “You'd have to be able
to swear to it, anyhow, and I don't believe you can.” He looked at
Palliser in eager and anxious uncertainty. “If you could,” he dragged out,
“I shouldn't have a check-book. Where would you be then?”</p>
<p>“I should be in comfortable circumstances, dear chap, and so would you if
you gave me the money to-night, while you possess a check-book. It would
be only a sort of temporary loan in any case, whatever turned up. The
investment would quadruple itself. But there is no time to be lost.
Understand that.”</p>
<p>T. Tembarom broke out into a sort of boyish resentment.</p>
<p>“I don't believe he did look like him, anyhow,” he cried. “I believe it's
all a bluff.” His crude-sounding young swagger had a touch of final
desperation in it as he turned on Palliser. “I'm dead sure it's a bluff.
What a fool I was not to think of that! You want to bluff me into going
into this Cedric thing. You could no more swear he was like him than—than
I could.”</p>
<p>The outright, presumptuous, bold stripping bare of his phrases infuriated
Palliser too suddenly and too much. He stepped up to him and looked into
his eyes.</p>
<p>“Bluff you, you young bounder!” he flung out at him. “You're losing your
head. You're not in New York streets here. You are talking to a gentleman.
No,” he said furiously, “I couldn't swear that he was like him, but what I
can swear in any court of justice is that the man I saw at the window was
Jem Temple Barholm, and no other man on earth.”</p>
<p>When he had said it, he saw the astonishing dolt change his expression
utterly again, as if in a flash. He stood up, putting his hands in his
pockets. His face changed, his voice changed.</p>
<p>“Fine!” he said. “First-rate! That's what I wanted to get on to.”</p>
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