“I am not grumbling. I quite recognise the logic of the whole thing, but I feel as though I were looking at everything through the large end of a pair of opera glasses, just as when as a child I used to do so and amuse myself by watching human beings reduced to the size of dolls.
“Well, now you have all my story and I have put before you a new view of things and I hope I have not shocked you all. My poor Raft must now go to the Sailors’ Home where I am going with him. I want some money, Monsieur Bonvalot.”
“Mademoiselle,” said Bonvalot, awaking like a person from hypnotism and delighted to find himself on a business footing again, “certainly, I have here your cheque book which I have brought with me.”
“Then we will go to another room and discuss business matters,” said the girl rising. “Now all you people please enjoy yourselves. You are my guests whilst you stay in this hotel. Madame de Brie will see that you have everything.”
She led the way from the room, Monsieur Bonvalot following. A suite had been engaged for her and here in the sitting-room she started to talk business with her man of affairs.
A large fortune is like a delicate animal, always in need of nursing and attention, it is always changing colour in spots from rosy to dark, a depreciation in Peruvian bonds means that your capital has shrunk just there and the question comes will it go on shrinking; a big rise in P.L.M. shares suggests taking the profit and re-investing should they fall again.
Monsieur Bonvalot had problems of this sort to set before the girl—she swept them away. “I have no time to attend to all that now,” said she, “some other day will do. I want twenty thousand francs, have you got them?”
“Twenty thousand francs,” said Bonvalot. “No, Mademoiselle. I brought five thousand francs in notes thinking you would want them for your expenses here, but you can write a cheque on the Crédit Lyonnais and I will get it cashed for you at once.”
He produced from a wallet a bundle of pink and blue bank notes and counted out five thousand francs, then she wrote a cheque for fifteen thousand payable to him. He endorsed it, went off and returned in ten minutes with the money. She put the notes in a big envelope and the envelope in her pocket. That same pocket still contained the old tobacco box of Captain Slocum and the other odds and ends which she treasured more than gold.
“That will do for the present,” said she, “to-morrow I will open an account at the Marseilles branch of the Crédit Lyonnais, or rather you can do it for me to-day. Give them this specimen of my signature and they can telegraph to the Paris branch. I would like two hundred thousand francs put to my credit here.”