“Black, distinctly black, but valuable. In figures, slightly more than a quarter of a million in English money ought to come to me for my share out of him; or rather, as it now is, our share; yours and mine, dear.”
“Oh, you duck, Pat! You don’t mean to say I’m to marry a rich man? Wherever did you steal the money from? Speculation?”
“Speculation of sorts, though steal describes it better. It’s there, and that’s the main thing.”
“Money in the pocket is better than ten plans to get it there any day. Pat, we’ll have a big steam yacht, and when we get sick of London we’ll go and see all the rest of the world. But you of all people to become a successful speculator! Tell me, what have you been making your corner in? Nothing unclean I hope, like short ribs of pork?”
“Gold, if that will suit your ladyship.”
“Oh, this is delightful. You’ve been trading on American necessities. Tell me all about it. I think I can follow. One hears so much about the silver question, that one can’t help understanding it a little.”
So, with a pardonable couleur de rose, wherever tinting was available, Onslow told the story of his finding the channel into the Everglades, his compact with Shelf, the hazardous voyage of the S. S. Port Edes, and the subsequent disposal of the specie. The girl listened to the tale with close attention and unmoved face. Even the account of the mutiny and the gruesome encounter between Nutt and his friend failed to call up comment, because in domestic Florida a little dashing homicide is such a very common occurrence. But when Patrick Onslow had finished his say and looked to her for approval, he only got a grave and decisive shake of the auburn head.
“Well, dear,” he asked at last, made very anxious by her silence.
“No, Pat,” she said quietly, “I can’t share in a fortune which has been laid up that way. Heaven knows, I’m not squeamish. Hearing what I do out here about Trusts and Corners and Syndicates, and seeing what I can’t help seeing of the way the people around make their living, and still evade the law and retain respect, my notions of morality are very easy and slack. But——”
“But I have gone too far?”