“Bluff, my dear. Absolute and unmitigated bluff. Albert’s come home—to get married, I think. So I wrote him a chatty letter, saying—well wrapped-up, of course—that we were thinking very seriously of giving up our cigar business. I said Simpson wanted to retire, and that the cigarette business was so profitable. . . .” He laughed. “Anyway, it came off. The old man wrote imploring me not to decide in a hurry; Albert wrote to me; they wired Havana, and Havana wrote to me; they invited me, at their expense—they’re as mean as they’re rich—to come over to Hamburg. I kept them waiting ten days. Then I went. Pat, you would have laughed to see me allowing myself to be persuaded—on my own terms—to sign a ten-year agreement with them.”
“But, Peter,” interrupted his wife, “was it quite”—she hesitated—“straight.”
“Straight?” He thought it over. “Yes. Just as straight as raising the pot on a busted flush. I stood to look silly if they’d called my bluff, didn’t I? And anyway, it’s jolly good business.”
They sat silent for a minute or two. And again she was conscious of his adequacy. What he went for, he got. By his getting, she and her children benefitted. That was the Law, inviolable since the days of the cave-man. Weaklings to the wall—to the strong man, the fruits of his brain, of his industry. . . .
“I’m glad about this contract, in more ways than one,” he said suddenly. “You see, it’s a certainty. And certainties are always worth having. Nirvana isn’t a certainty, not yet. It’s a gamble.” The confident tone eased off a shade or two. “Once or twice, I’ve been rather harassed about it. Finance. . . .”
“We might run to a car next year now,” he added.
Came Nurse’s tactful knock, and the children, merry-eyed, attired for the Park.
“Hello, Daddy,” they chorussed, and romped over to be kissed.
“Where have you been, Daddy?” asked Primula.
“Germany.”