He handed a little packet across to Rochester, who slipped it carelessly into his pocket.
“This is romance indeed!” he declared, with something of the old banter in his tone. “You are worse than the industrious apprentice. Have I, by chance, the pleasure of speaking to one of the world’s masters—a millionaire?”
The young man laughed. His laugh, at any rate, was not unpleasant.
“No!” he said. “I don’t suppose that I am even wealthy, as the world reckons wealth. I have succeeded to a certain extent, although I came very, very near to disaster. I have made a little money, and I can make more when it is necessary.”
“Your commercial instincts,” Rochester remarked, “have not been thoroughly aroused, then?”
The young man smiled.
“Do I need to tell you,” he asked, “that great wealth was not among the things I saw that night?”
“That was a marvelous motor-car in which you passed me,” remarked the other.
“It belongs to the lady,” Saton said, “who brought me down from London.”