As he vouchsafed no answer to this question, although Sir Robert muttered an uncomplimentary one between his lips which Barbara heard, or read, she continued:
“And you are all very rich and successful, are you not, and are going to be much richer and much more successful—next week. Now what I want to ask you is—how is it done?”
“Accepting the premises for the sake of argument, Miss Champers,” replied Sir Robert, who felt that he could not refuse the challenge, “the answer is that it is done by finance.”
“I am still in the dark,” she said. “Finance, as I have heard of it, means floating companies, and companies are floated to earn money for those who invest in them. Now this afternoon as I was dull, I got hold of a book called the Directory of Directors, and looked up all your names in it, except those of the gentlemen from Paris, and the companies that you direct—I found out about those in another book. Well, I could not make out that any of these companies have ever earned any money, a dividend, don’t you call it? Therefore how do you all grow so rich, and why do people invest in them?”
Now Sir Robert frowned, Alan coloured, two or three of the company laughed outright, and one of the French gentlemen who understood English and had already drunk as much as was good for him, remarked loudly to his neighbour, “Ah! she is charming. She do touch the spot, like that ointment you give me to-day. How do we grow rich and why do the people invest? Mon Dieu! why do they invest? That is the great mystery. I say that cette belle demoiselle, votre nièce, est ravissante. Elle a d’esprit, mon ami Haswell.”
Apparently her uncle did not share these sentiments, for he turned as red as any turkey-cock, and said across the great round table:
“My dear Barbara, I wish that you would leave matters which you do not understand alone. We are here to dine, not to talk about finance.”
“Certainly, Uncle,” she answered sweetly. “I stand, or rather sit, reproved. I suppose that I have put my foot into it as usual, and the worst of it is,” she added, turning to Sir Robert, “that I am just as ignorant as I was before.”
“If you want to master these matters, Miss Champers,” said Aylward with a rather forced laugh, “you must go into training and worship at the shrine of”—he meant to say Mammon, then thinking that the word sounded unpleasant, substituted—“the Yellow God as we do.”
At these words Alan, who had been studying his plate, looked up quickly, and her uncle’s face turned from red to white. But the irrepressible Barbara seized upon them.