“Oh, as to that, his increase of fortune will suggest its own appropriate increase of wants. He will be elevated by the requirements of his own advancing condition, and even if he were not, it is not exactly any affair of ours; we do our part when we afford him the means of a higher civilization.”
“I don't think so. I suspect that not alone do you neglect a duty, but that you inflict a wrong. But come, I will take another alternative; I will suggest—what some are already predicting—that the project will not prove a success.”
“Who says that?” cried Hankes, hastily, and in his haste forgetting his habitual caution of manner.
“Many have said it. Some of those whose opinions I am accustomed to place trust in, have told myself that the speculation is too vast,—disproportioned to the country, undertaken on a scale which nothing short of imperial resources could warrant—”
“But surely you do not credit such forebodings?” broke he in.
“It is of little consequence how far I credit them. I am as nothing in the event. I only would ask, What if all were to fail?—what if ruin were to fall upon the whole undertaking, what is to become of all those who have invested their entire fortunes in the scheme? The great and affluent have many ventures,—they trust not their wealth to one argosy; but how will it be with those who have embarked their all in one vessel?”
Mr. Hankes paused, as if to reflect over his reply, and she continued: “It is a question I have already dared to address to Mr. Dunn himself. I wrote to him twice on the subject. The first time I asked what guarantee could be given to small shareholders,—those, for instance, who had involved their whole wealth in the enterprise. He gave me no answer. To my second application came the dry rejoinder that I had possibly forgotten in whose service I was retained; that I drew my resources from the Earl of Glengariff, and not from the peasantry, whose advocate I had constituted myself.”
“Well?” cried Hankes, curious to hear what turn the correspondence took.
“Well,” said she, smiling gently, “I wrote again. I said it was true I had forgotten the fact of which he reminded me, but I pleaded in excuse that neither the Earl nor her Ladyship had refreshed my memory on the circumstance by any replies to eight, or, I believe, nine letters I sent them. I mentioned, too, that though I could endure the slight of this neglect for myself, I could not put up with it for the sake of those whose interest I watched over. Hear me out,” said she, perceiving that he was about to interrupt. “It had become known in Glengariff that all the little fortune I was possessed of—the few hundred pounds Mr. Dunn had rescued for me out of the wreck of our property—was invested in this scheme. Mr. Dunn counselled this employment of the money, and I consented to it. Now, this trustfulness on my part induced many others to imitate what they deemed my example.”
“And you really did make this investment?” said Hankes, whose eagerness could not brook longer delay.