"Yes, I saw him," she replied, her voice rather fainter than usual, while some of the fine colour died out of her cheeks.
"His is a most interesting and unusual case," went on Mr. Wallis. "He is one of our very rich men now, and the funny part of it is that he declares he owes all his prosperity to the loss of his limb, which, but for a mistake of the doctor's, he need not have lost at all."
"What do you mean?" she asked, stopping short in the path and staring at him with parted lips, her face so ghastly white that he asked her anxiously if she felt ill.
"No, no, it is nothing, thank you, but I want to hear about that man. It sounds most awfully interesting; and won't you tell me what his name is?" she said, turning such a wistful gaze upon him, that it seemed to him there must have been some sorrow in her life, although she laughed in such a cheery, lighthearted way as a rule.
"Reginald Baxter. He is English, and came out to this country about six or seven years ago. His people are very aristocratic, but poor as church mice, and they were so terribly upset at his disaster they practically cast him off; but he seems to have no false pride himself and no unnecessary notions of his own importance; but he is a veritable king of finance——"
"What is that?" demanded Don; but Billykins was watching Nealie with a close scrutiny, and he had his fists clenched tightly as if he were meditating some sort of revenge upon the innocent Mr. Wallis for the pain he was giving her in talking about the one-armed man.
"A king of finance is a man who has a natural gift for managing money and making it increase. I should not wonder if you develop a cleverness in that way yourself when you are a little older," said Mr. Wallis, who was a keen student of human nature and had already amused himself by mentally forecasting the future of the seven.
"Perhaps I shall," answered Don stolidly. "Anyhow I don't mean to be poor when I grow up, for I shall just go without things until I get a lot of money saved, and Mr. Runciman used to say that money made money, and if a man could save one hundred pounds the next hundred would save itself."
"Well done, Mr. Runciman, that is sound philosophy!" said Mr. Wallis, and was going to expound the art of money making still further when there came a sudden interruption from Billykins.
"Can't you talk about something else, please? You have made Nealie cry by going on so about that one-armed man. She never can bear to talk about them, and you didn't see that she did not like it," he said in a shrill and very aggrieved tone.