Dumphy looked at his accomplice keenly. There was something in Victor's manner that was vaguely suspicious. Dumphy, who was one of those men to whose courage the habit of success in all things was essential, had been a little shaken by his signal defeat in his interview with Poinsett, and now became irritable.
"Yes—her husband. What have you got to propose about it, eh? Nothing? Well, look here, I sent for you to say that as everything now is legal and square, you might as well dry up in regard to her former relations or your first scheme. You sabe?" Dumphy became slangy as he lost his self-control. "You are to know nothing about Miss Grace Conroy."
"And there is no more any sister, eh—only a wife?"
"Exactly."
"So."
"You will of course get something for these preliminary steps of yours, although you understand they have been useless, and that your claim is virtually dead. You are, in fact, in no way connected with her present success. Unless—unless," added Dumphy, with a gratuitous malice that defeat had engendered, "unless you expect something for having been the means of making a match between her and Gabriel."
Victor turned a little more yellow in the thin line over his teeth. "Ha! ha! good—a joke," he laughed. "No, I make no charge to you for that; not even to you. No—ha! ha!" At the same moment had Mr. Dumphy known what was passing in his mind he would have probably moved a little nearer the door of his counting-room.
"There's nothing we can pay you for but silence. We may as well understand each other regarding that. That's your interest; it's ours only so far as Mrs. Conroy's social standing is concerned, for I warn you that exposure might seriously compromise you in a business way, while it would not hurt us. I could get the value of Gabriel's claim to the mine advanced to-morrow, if the whole story were known to-night. If you remember, the only evidence of a previous discovery exists in a paper in our possession. Perhaps we pay you for that. Consider it so, if you like. Consider also that any attempt to get hold of it legally or otherwise would end in its destruction. Well, what do you say? All right. When the stock is issued I'll write you a cheque: or perhaps you'd take a share of stock?"
"I would prefer the money," said Victor, with a peculiar laugh.
Dumphy affected to take no notice of the sarcasm. "Your head is level, Victor," he said, returning to his papers. "Don't meddle with stocks. Good day!"