“You and Major White?” he suggested.
“And this gentleman, who comes as our financial advisor.”
Roden raised his eyebrows rather insolently. “Ah—may I ask who this gentleman is?” he said.
“My name is Wade,” answered the banker, characteristically for himself.
Roden's face changed, and he glanced at the great financier with a keen interest.
“I have no objection,” he said after a moment's hesitation. “If Von Holzen will agree. I will go and ask him.”
And they were left alone in the sunshine once more. Mr. Wade watched Roden as he walked towards the factory.
“Not the sort of man I expected,” he commented. “But he has the right shaped head for figures. He is shrewd enough to know that he cannot refuse, so gives in with a good grace.”
In a few minutes Von Holzen approached them, emerging from the factory alone. He bowed politely, but did not offer to shake hands. He had not seen Cornish since the evening when he had offered to make malgamite before him, and the experiment had taken such a deadly turn. He looked at him now and found his glance returned by an illegible smile. The question flashed through his mind and showed itself on his face as to why Roden had made such a mistake as to introduce a man like this into the Malgamite scheme. Von Holzen invited the gentlemen into the office. “It is small, but it will accommodate us,” he said, with a smile.
He drew forward chairs, and offered one to Cornish in particular, with a grim deference. He seemed to have divined that their last meeting in this same office had been, by tacit understanding, kept a secret. There is for some men a certain satisfaction in antagonism, and a stern regard for a strong foe—which reached its culmination, perhaps, in that Saxon knight who desired to be buried in the same chapel as his lifelong foe—between him, indeed, and the door—so that at the resurrection day they should not miss each other.