“What”—she began, stammering—“What is the matter, Joel?”
He permitted himself the luxury of smiling blankly at her for a further moment. Then he tossed his head, and laughed abruptly.
“Sit down, old girl,” he adjured her. “Try and hold yourself together, now—to hear some different kind of news. I've been playing it rather low down on you, for a fact. Instead of my being smashed, it's the other way about.”
She continued to confront him, with a nervous clasp upon the chair-back. Her breathing troubled her as she regarded him, and tried to take in the meaning of his words.
“Do you mean—you've been lying to me about—about your Company?” she asked, confusedly.
“No—no—not at all,” he replied, now all genial heartiness. “No—what I told you was gospel truth—but I was taking a rise out of you all the same.” He seemed so unaffectedly pleased by his achievement in kindly duplicity that she forced an awkward smile to her lips.
“I don't understand in the least,” she said, striving to remember what he had told her. “What you said was that the public had entirely failed to come in—that there weren't enough applications for shares to pay flotation expenses—those were your own words. Of course, I don't pretend to understand these City matters—but it IS the case, isn't it, that if people don't subscribe for the shares of a new company, then the company is a failure?”
“Yes, that may be said to be the case—as a general rule,” he nodded at her, still beaming.
“Well, then—of course—I don't understand,” she owned.
“I don't know as you'll understand it much more when I've explained it to you,” he said, seating himself, and motioning her to the other chair. “But yes, of course you will. You're a business woman. You know what figures mean. And really the whole thing is as simple as A B C. You remember that I told you——”