M. Brigot laughed sarcastically.
“Ten thousand pounds?” he demanded with gentle irony. “To build a house for a beautiful American widow, eh?”
Cartwright accepted the gibe with a smile.
“I’m not going to show you my hand,” he said.
“It will be infamously dirty,” said M. Brigot, who was in his bright six o’clock mood.
“I know there is gold in the Angera,” the other went on, without troubling to notice the interruption, “and I know that, properly worked, your mine may pay big profits.”
“I will sell out,” said M. Brigot after consideration, “but at a price. I have told you before I will sell out—at a price.”
“But what a price!” said Cartwright, raising his eyebrows and with a gesture of extravagant despair. “It is all the money in the world!”
“Nevertheless, it is the price,” said M. Brigot comfortably.
“I’ll tell you what I am willing to do.” Cartwright stroked his chin as though the solution had just occurred to him. “I will float your property in London, tacking on a number of other properties which I have bought in the neighbourhood. I am willing to pay you two hundred thousand pounds—that is to say, six million francs.”