laugh came at last, but he was out of the door in time, and Mrs. Dennison had no leisure to enjoy it fully, for, the moment her visitor was gone, Mr. Belford and Lord Semingham were announced. They came together, seeking Harry Dennison. There was a "little hitch" of some sort in the affairs of the Omofaga Company – nothing of consequence, said Mr. Belford reassuringly. Mrs. Dennison explained that Harry Dennison had gone off to call on Mr. Ruston.
"Oh, then he knows by now," said Semingham in a tone of relief.
"And it'll be all right," added Belford contentedly.
"Mr. Belford," said Mrs. Dennison, "I'm living in an atmosphere of Omofaga. I eat it, and drink it, and wear it, and breathe it. And, what in the end, is it?"
"Ask Ruston," interposed Semingham.
"I did; but I don't think he told me."
"But surely, my dear Mrs. Dennison, your husband takes you into his confidence?" suggested Mr. Belford.
Mrs. Dennison smiled, as she replied,
"Oh, yes, I know what you're doing. But I want to know why you're doing it. I don't believe you'll ever get anything out of it, you know."
"Oh, directors always get something," protested Semingham. "Penal servitude sometimes, but always something."
"I've never had such implicit faith in any undertaking in my life," asserted Mr. Belford. "And I know that your husband shares my views. It's bound to be the greatest success of the day. Ah, here's Dennison!"
Harry came in wiping his brow. Belford rushed to him, and drew him to the window, button-holing him with decision. Lord Semingham smiled lazily and pulled his whisker.
"Don't you want to hear the news?" Mrs. Dennison asked.
"No! He's been to Ruston."
Mrs. Dennison looked at him for an instant with something rather like scorn in her eye. Lord Semingham laughed.
"I'm not quite as bad as that, really," he said.
"And the others?" she asked, leaning forward and taking care that her voice did not reach the other pair.
"He turns Belford round his fingers."
"And Mr. Carlin?"
"In his pocket."
Mrs. Dennison cast a glance towards the window.
"Don't go on," implored Semingham, half-seriously.
"And my husband?" she asked in a still lower voice.
Lord Semingham protested with a gesture against such cross-examination.
"Surely it's a good thing for me to know?" she said.
"Well – a great influence."
"Thank you."
There was a pause for an instant. Then she rose with a laugh and rang the bell for tea.
"I hope he won't ruin us all," she said.
"I've got Bessie's settlement," observed Lord Semingham; and he added after a moment's pause, "What's the matter? I thought you were a thoroughgoing believer."
"I'm a woman," she answered. "If I were a man – "
"You'd be the prophet, not the disciple, eh?"
She looked at him, and then across to the couple by the window.
"To do Belford justice," remarked Semingham, reading her glance, "he never admits that he isn't a great man – though surely he must know it."
"Is it better to know it, or not to know it?" she asked, restlessly fingering the teapot and cups which had been placed before her. "I sometimes think that if you resolutely refuse to know it, you can alter it."
Belford's name had been the only name mentioned in the conversation; yet Semingham knew that she was not thinking of Belford nor of him.
"I knew it about myself very soon," he said. "It makes a man better to know it, Mrs. Dennison."
"Oh, yes – better," she answered impatiently.
The two men came and joined them. Belford accepted a cup of tea, and, as he took it, he said to Harry, continuing their conversation,
"Of course, I know his value; but, after all, we must judge for ourselves."
"Of course," acquiesced Harry, handing him bread-and-butter.
"We are the masters," pursued Belford.
Mrs. Dennison glanced at him, and a smile so full of meaning – of meaning which it was as well Mr. Belford should not see – appeared on her face, that Lord Semingham deftly interposed his person between them, and said, with apparent seriousness,
"Oh, he mustn't think he can do just what he likes with us."
"I am entirely of your opinion," said Belford, with a weighty nod.
After tea, Lord Semingham walked slowly back to his own house. He had a trick of stopping still, when he fell into thought, and he was motionless on the pavement of Piccadilly more than once on his way home. The last time he paused for nearly three minutes, till an acquaintance, passing by, clapped him on the back, and inquired what occupied his mind.
"I was thinking," said Semingham, laying his forefinger on his friend's arm, "that if you take what a clever man really is, and add to it what a clever woman who is interested in him thinks he is, you get a most astonishing person."
The friend stared. The speculation seemed hardly pressing enough to excuse a man for blocking the pavement of Piccadilly.
"If, on the other hand," pursued Semingham, "you take what an ordinary man isn't, and add all that a clever woman thinks he isn't, you get – "
"Hadn't we better go on, old fellow?" asked the friend.
"No, I think we'd better not," said Semingham, starting to walk again.
CHAPTER V
A TELEGRAM TO FRANKFORT
The success of Lady Valentine's Saturday to Monday party at Maidenhead was spoilt by the unscrupulous, or (if the charitable view be possible) the muddle-headed conduct of certain eminent African chiefs – so small is the world, so strong the chain of gold (or shares) that binds it together. The party was marred by Willie Ruston's absence; and he was away because he had to go to Frankfort, and he had to go to Frankfort because of that little hitch in the affairs of the Omofaga. The hitch was, in truth, a somewhat grave one, and it occurred, most annoyingly, immediately after a gathering, marked by uncommon enthusiasm and composed of highly influential persons, had set the impress of approval on the scheme. On the following morning, it was asserted that the said African chiefs, from whom Ruston and his friends derived their title to Omofaga, had acted in a manner that belied the character for honesty and simplicity in commercial matters (existing side by side with intense savagery and cruelty in social and political life) that Mr. Foster Belford had attributed to them at the great meeting. They had, it was said, sold Omofaga several times over in small parcels, and twice, at least, en bloc– once to the Syndicate (from whom the Company was acquiring
