Probably no one is always wrong; at any rate, Mr. Otto Heather was right now and then, and he had hit the mark when he accused Willie Ruston of "commercialism." But he went astray when he concluded, per saltum, that the object of his antipathy was a money-grubbing, profit-snatching, upper-hand-getting machine, and nothing else in the world. Probably, again, no one ever was. Ruston had not only feelings, but also what many people consider a later development—a conscience. And, whatever the springs on which his conscience moved, it acted as a restraint upon him. Both his feelings and his conscience would have told him that it would not do for him to delude his friends or the public with a scheme which was a fraud. He would have delivered this inner verdict in calm and temperate terms; it would have been accompanied by no disgust, no remorse, no revulsion at the idea having made its way into his mind; it was just that, on the whole, such a thing wouldn't do. The vagueness of the phrase faithfully embodied the spirit of the decision, for whether it wouldn't do, because it was in itself unseemly, or merely because, if found out, it would look unseemly, was precisely one of those curious points with which Mr. Ruston's practical intellect declined to trouble itself. If Omofaga had been a fraud, then Ruston would have whistled it down the wind. But Omofaga was no fraud—in his hands at least no fraud. For, while he believed in Omofaga to a certain extent, Willie Ruston believed in himself to an indefinite, perhaps an infinite, extent. He thought Omofaga a fair security for anyone's money, but himself a superb one. Omofaga without him—or other people's Omofagas—might be a promising speculation; add him, and Omofaga became a certainty. It will be seen, then, that Mr. Heather's inspiration had soon failed—unless, that is, machines can see visions and dream dreams, and melt down hard facts in crucibles heated to seven times in the fires of imagination. But a man may do all this, and yet not be the passive victim of his dreams and imaginings. The old buccaneers—and Adela Ferrars had thought Ruston a buccaneer modernised—dreamt, but they sailed and fought too; and they sailed and fought and won because they dreamt. And if many of their dreams were tinted with the gleam of gold, they were none the less powerful and alluring for that.
Ruston had laid the whole position before Baron von Geltschmidt of Frankfort, with—as it seemed—the utmost candour. He and his friends were not deeply committed in the matter; there was, as yet, only a small syndicate; of course they had paid something for their rights, but, as the Baron knew (and Willie's tone emphasised the fact that he must know) the actual sums paid out of pocket in these cases were not of staggering magnitude; no company was formed yet; none would be, unless all went smoothly. If the Baron and his friends were sure of their ground, and preferred to go on—why, he and his friends were not eager to commit themselves to a long and arduous contest. There must, he supposed, be a give-and-take between them.
"It looks," he said, "as far as I can judge, as if either we should have to buy you out, or you would have to buy us out."
"Perhaps," suggested the Baron, blinking lazily behind his gold spectacles, "we could get rid of you without buying you out."
"Oh, if you drove us to it, by refusing to treat, we should have a shot at that too, of course," laughed Willie Ruston, swallowing a glass of white wine. The Baron had asked him to discuss the matter over luncheon.
"It seems to me," observed the Baron, lighting a cigar, "that people are rather cold about speculations just now."
"I should think so; but this is not a speculation; it's a certainty."
"Why do you tell me that, when you want to get rid of me?"
"Because you won't believe it. Wasn't that Bismarck's way?"
"You are not Bismarck—and a certainty is what the public thinks one."