The next day in a back bedroom of a down-town hotel, $10,000 changed hands between a slight, dark, very finished gentleman who spoke English with the slightest possible accent, and a tall, fine-looking young American whose name never appeared in the transaction. Within a month a shipment of arms had been smuggled into a certain South American country, with the result that the revolution was completely successful—as indeed it deserved to be. One of the first acts of the new government was to revoke the iniquitous concession of the San Pedro gold mine, made to “a group of greedy North American capitalists by the former corrupt and evil administration.”
Riatt’s bearing during this unhappy experience was universally praised. As he went in and out of his broker’s office, not a trace of anxiety visible upon his countenance, men would nudge each other and whisper, “Did you ever see such nerve? He stands to lose a million.”
The only moment of regret that he suffered was when one day, when things first began to look badly, he met Linburne and another man in Wall Street, and there was something subtly insulting and triumphant in the former’s manner of condoling with him about the situation.
Rumors of it reached Christine. She liked the picture of Riatt’s courage and calm, and hated the danger of his losing money.
“You’re not risking too much, are you, Max?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t you enjoy love in a cottage, Christine?” he answered.
She tried to make it clear to him how little such a prospect would tempt her, and gathered from the fact that he hardly listened to her reply that he felt confident there was no real danger.
With the success of the revolution, Riatt realized that his holiday was over, that he must tell Christine the truth and then retire to his old home and begin a new method of life on his decreased income.
It was now early April—a warm advanced spring—when he decided that the next day should see the end of his little drama. But, as we all know, it sometimes happens that those who set a mine are the most startled by the explosion; and Riatt, at an early breakfast (for he and Christine were going into the country for the day), with a mind occupied with the phrases in which he should bid her good-by and eyes lazily reading the newspaper, was suddenly startled beyond words by a short paragraph on the financial page. This stated in the baldest terms the failure of his brokers at home.
There was no country expedition for Riatt that day. He rushed down-town, leaving a short message for Christine, and by night he knew the worst, knew that the liabilities of the firm far exceeded any possible assets, knew positively that the comfortable sum he had intended to preserve for himself had been swept away, knew that he now really had to begin life over.