"Well, how are you getting on up in the valley?" he inquired, and Geoffrey's eyes expressed faint amusement as he answered:
"As well as we expected, and, if we had our difficulties, you would hardly expect me to tell them to a director of the Industrial Enterprise Company."
"Perhaps not!" the capitalist smiled, for the Industrial Enterprise was the corporation which had opposed Savine's reclamation scheme. "Anyway, the company is a speculation with me; my colleagues manage it without much of my assistance. But say, what's the matter with your respected chief? He has come right out of his shell to-night."
The speaker glanced towards Savine, who was surrounded by a group of well-known men.
"I tell you, Thurston, there's something uncanny about that man of late," he continued. "However, knowing there's no use trying to fool you, I'll give you a fair warning and come straight to something I may as well say now as later. Savine will go down like a house of cards some day, and those who lean upon him will find it, in our language, frosty weather. Now, suppose we made you a fair offer, would you join us?"
A curt refusal trembled upon Geoffrey's lips, when he reflected that, as soon as the work was finished, his relations with Savine would be drawn closer still. In the meantime, it was not advisable to give any hint to a possible enemy.
"I couldn't say until I heard what the offer is," he answered cautiously.
"You're a typical cold-blooded Britisher," asserted the other man. "I don't know either. I leave all details to the members of the company; but we've a secretary, who understands all about it, in this house to-night. We're half of us here on business, directly or indirectly, and not for pleasure, so it's possible he may talk to you. But I see our hostess eying us, and it's time we walked along."
They moved forward together, and the woman whom they approached, beckoning Geoffrey, whom she had for some reason taken under her patronage, said:
"There's a countrywoman of yours present, who doesn't know many of our people yet. I should like to present you to her. She comes, I understand, from the same wilds which sheltered you. Mrs. Leslie, this is a special protégé of mine, Mr. Thurston, who could give you all information about the mountains in which your husband talks of banishing you."