Carson had some bad times with himself, but his under-lip never slackened. Rosser's grip on the market was firm and unhesitating. He sold heavily "to arrive."
"I have never known anyone who made money—worth talking about—by buying and holding," was the creed he offered to Carson. And in this case he was right. Suddenly the reaction began. Shares fell with a bump, and kept steadily on the down-grade for months.
At the end of the first month Carson's bear account closed with a handsome profit to himself of twelve thousand pounds.
In the meantime, negotiations had been proceeding over the South Rands. The lifelessness of the market did not affect the fact that the "Big House" wanted Carson's claims, and was steadily working to get them by hook or by crook. But Carson and Rosser were both up to every hook and crook of the game. They held the cards and they knew it, and when four hundred pounds each was offered for the shares, they only sat and smiled like little benign gods. Further, Rosser airily informed Wallerstein, the representative of the "Big House," that he would not consider anything under one thousand pounds. However, in secret conclave, the two conspirators agreed to take eight hundred pounds apiece—not bad for claims that had cost Carson twenty pounds each at the sheriff's sale. Rosser was for holding out for a thousand, but Carson's time was running out, and his patience.
"No: get a definite offer for eight hundred pounds, and close on it," were his orders, and on that decision he rested, as much as a man can rest in Johannesburg, taking the days quietly and dining sanely at nights with old friends. But he got little joy of their society, for the reason that though he knew their lives and interests, they knew nothing of the most vital and important part of his. They had never seen those lilac-coloured eyes with the big, black velvet centres; they could know nothing of the sweet, wild strain on his heart. He felt like a man who stood on the walls of a citadel filled with treasure, parleying with friends and enemies alike, but allowing no one to enter.
Suddenly he grew horribly lonely; the days dragged and the nights brought memories that set him in bodily torment.
Fortunately at this juncture Forsyth, an old crony, carried him off to the Potchefstroom district for some veldt shooting. The air, the long tramps, and the joy of sport, filled in the days, and found him too tired at nights to do anything but fall log-like into the blankets.
CHAPTER XXX
POPPY and Cinthie were sitting in the garden together under an orange-tree, which was set in the midst of the thick fence of Barbadoes-thorn. Poppy's muslin gown was of a colour that made her look like a freshly-plucked spray of lilac, and she wore a wide white hat, trimmed with convolvulus.