Captain and Mrs. Pauncefote lived soft.
Finding their income insufficient, they spent their capital freely, proposing by happy speculation to replenish their hoard. The deal which Oliver was just completing was, of course, a coup phenomenal. To do him justice, it would not have been so phenomenal if it had not been so daring. Fortunes are not made at chuck-farthing. They are won by pitching fortunes upon the table.
So also are they lost.
When, seated at breakfast in their salon some seven hours after Jean had burst into tears, Oliver read in the paper that Plaisir et Cie, Bankers, had suspended payment, he put a hand to his head. . . .
For a full minute he sat, staring. . . .
Then the door was opened, and Jean came into the room.
Oliver laid down the paper and buttered some bread.
“Well, old lady,” he said, “what’s the programme to-day?”
“Lunch with the Bostocks,” said Jean, selecting a roll. “Then to Molyneux with Maisie. Dinner with Pat Lafone. It’s his birthday, he says, and he swears we’ll light such a candle——”
“Let’s call it off,” said Pauncefote, “an’ keep the day to ourselves.”