I read the paragraph his finger marked as he passed it to me.
END OF THE FREIGHT WAR.
From our Hamburg Correspondent.
I am in a position to state that an arrangement has been completed between the interests represented by Messrs. Holmes, Laing & Co., of Liverpool, and a powerful combination of this port, of which the Allgemeine——is chief. The terms of the compact are naturally secret, but it is believed that they include a large setting apart of capital for the purpose of carrying on the recent freight war to lengths that no rival combination can hope to equal. Should such a combination care to lease the river, it can ascertain to what extent the amalgamation is “bluffing.” From the point of view of exporters generally, this will mean that the cheap rates that have obtained during the last two years to all ports of the Near East will not last much longer.
I read it again. I was feeling much too tired and stupid to read newspapers—a lengthy, fruitless and exhausting occupation at any time, I consider.
“I’m afraid,” I said forlornly, passing it back, “that this doesn’t convey very much to me.”
He smiled, I thought as much as to say, “These business-girls!”
Then he said, “Well, but you’ve met this Monsieur Charrier, this big French shipping man, in Anglesey? Perhaps you didn’t realize that I’d business reasons for remaining on cordial terms—keeping in with him at all costs? Anyhow I may tell you now that this was in view of the amalgamation which he and my firm might be forming. I couldn’t, you understand, say anything before, but there was to be an alliance——”
“Yes?” (Between himself and that Charrier girl. Why go on explaining it all to me? I didn’t want to hear all this.) But he went on more quickly:
“You saw the sort of man he was. Touchy, excitable, easily put off! I had to be always on my guard with him. So that when I heard that he—this important person to me, Miss Trant—seemed inclined to do me the honour of selecting me, not only as a business-ally, but also—”