"That was the amount," said he, a sudden glitter in his eyes.
I studied the ceiling with a calculating squint, as if trying to approximate my balance in bank. He watched me closely, almost breathlessly. At last, unable to control his eagerness, he said:
"At the usual rate of interest, you understand."
"Certainly," I said, and resumed my calculations. He got the impression that I was annoyed by the interruption.
"I beg your pardon," he said.
"What security can you give, Mr. Pless?" I demanded in a very business-like way.
"Oh, you Americans!" he cried, his face beaming with premature relief. "You will pin us down, I see. I do not wonder that you are so rich. I shall give you my personal note, Mr. Smart, for the amount, secured by a mortgage—a supplementary mortgage—on the Chateau Tarnowsy."
Tarnowsy! Now I remembered everything. Tarnowsy! The name struck my memory like a blow. What a stupid dolt I had been! The whole world had rung wedding bells for the marriage of the Count Maris Tarnowsy, scion of one of the greatest Hungarian houses, and Aline, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Gwendolen and Jasper Titus, of New York, Newport, Tuxedo, Hot Springs, Palm Beach and so forth. Jasper Titus, the banker and railway magnate, whose name as well as his hand was to be seen in every great financial movement of the last two decades!
What a fool I was not to recall a marriage that had been not only on the lips of every man, woman and child in the States but on mine in particular, for I had bitterly execrated the deliverance into bondage of this young girl of whose beauty and charm I had heard so much.
The whole spectacular travesty came back to me with a rush, as I sat there in the presence of the only man who had ever been known to get the better of Jasper Titus in a trade. I remembered with some vividness my scornful attitude toward the newspapers of the metropolis, all of which fairly sloshed over with the news of the great event weeks beforehand and weeks afterward. I was not the only man who said harsh things about Jasper Titus in those days. I was but one of the multitude.