"Yes, it has been rather—unusual," conceded the general with swelling chest and gently waving dollar-and-a-half-apiece cigar.
"I do so ADMIRE a man who carves out his own fortune," Mrs. Presbury went on—she had not obeyed her husband's injunction as to the champagne. "It seems so wonderful to me that a man could with his own hands just dig a fortune out of the ground."
"He couldn't, ma'am," said the general, with gracious tolerance. "It wasn't till I stopped the fool digging and hunting around for gold that I began to get ahead. I threw away the pick and shovel and opened a hotel." (There were two or three sleeping-rooms of a kind in that "hotel," but it was rather a saloon of the species known as "doggery.") "Yes, it was in the hotel that I got my start. The fellows that make the money in mining countries ain't the prospectors and diggers, ma'am."
"Really!" cried Mrs. Presbury breathlessly. "How interesting!"
"They're fools, they are," proceeded the general. "No, the money's made by the fellows that grub-stake the fools—give 'em supplies and send 'em out to nose around in the mountains. Then them that find anything have to give half to the fellow that did the grub-staking. And he looks into the claim, and if there's anything in it, why, he buys the fool out. In mines, like everywhere else, ma'am, it ain't work, it's brains that makes the money. No miner ever made a mining fortune—not one. It's the brainy, foxy fellows that stay back in the camps. I used to send out fifty and a hundred men a year. Maybe only two or three'd turn up anything worth while. No, ma'am, I never got a dollar ahead on my digging. All the gold I ever dug went right off for grub—or a good time."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Mrs. Presbury. "I never heard of such a thing."
"But we're not here to talk about mines," said the general, his eyes upon Mildred. "I've been looking into matters—to get down to business—and I've asked you here to let you know that I'm willing to go ahead."
Profound silence. Mildred suddenly drew in her breath with a sound so sharp that the three others started and glanced hastily at her. But she made no further sign. She sat still and cold and pale.
The general, perfectly at ease, broke the silence. "I think Miss Gower and I would get on faster alone."
Presbury at once stood up; his wife hesitated, her eyes uneasily upon her daughter. Presbury said: "Come on, Alice." She rose and preceded him into the adjoining conservatory. The little general posed himself before the huge open fire, one hand behind him, the other at the level of his waistcoat, the big cigar between his first and second fingers. "Well, my dear?" said he.