“No,” said Vane. “I’d had time to consider the thing while I lay here, and it didn’t look as if I could have got an intelligible account out of you. But you may as well mention how much Nairn got for the shares.”
He lay smoking silently for a few minutes after Carroll told him, and the latter was strongly moved to sympathy since he thought it was not his financial reverse but one indirect result of it which would hit his comrade hardest.
“Well,” said Vane grimly, “I suppose I’ve done what my friends would consider a mad thing in coming up here, and I must face the reckoning.”
Carroll wondered if their conversation could be confined to the surface of the subject, because there were depths it would be better to leave undisturbed.
“After all, you’re far from broke,” he said as cheerfully as he could. “You have what the Clermont stock brought in, and you may make something out of this shingle-splitting scheme.”
There was bitterness in Vane’s laugh. “When I left Vancouver for England, I was generally supposed to be well on the way to affluence, and there was some foundation for the idea. I had floated the Clermont in the face of opposition; people believed in me; I could have raised what dollars I required for any new undertaking. Now a good deal of my money and my prestige is gone: folks have very little confidence in a man who has shown himself a failure. Besides, I may be a cripple.”
Carroll could guess his companion’s thoughts. There was a vein of stubborn pride in him, and he had, no doubt, decided it was unfitting that Evelyn’s future should be linked to that of a ruined man. This was an exaggerated view, because Vane was in reality far from ruined, and even if he had been so, he had in him the ability to recover from his misfortunes. Still, the man was obstinate and generally ready to make a sacrifice for an idea. Carroll, however, consoled himself with the reflection that Evelyn would probably have something to say upon the subject if she were given an opportunity, and he thought Mrs. Nairn would contrive that she had one.
“I can’t see any benefit in making things out as considerably worse than they are,” he said.
“Nor can I,” Vane agreed. “After all, I was getting pretty tired of the city, and I suppose I can raise enough to put up a small-power mill. It will be a pleasant change to take charge for a year or two in the bush. I’ll make a start at the thing as soon as I’m able to walk.”
This was significant, because it implied that he did not intend to remain in Vancouver, where he would have been able to enjoy Evelyn’s company; but Carroll made no comment, and by and by Vane spoke again.