Roden, on the other hand, took a certain broad interest in the progress of the world, but only watched the daily procession of events with the discriminating eye of a business man. He kept his eye, in a word, on the main chance, as on a small golden thread woven in the grey tissue of the world's history.
It was easy enough to make him talk of himself and of the Malgamite scheme.
“And you must admit that you are a success, you know,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “I see your quiet grey carts, full of little square boxes, passing up Park Straat to the railway station in a procession every day.”
“Yes,” admitted Roden. “We are doing a large business.”
He was willing to allow Mrs. Vansittart to suppose that he was a rich man, for he was shrewd enough to know that the affections, like all else in this world, are purchasable.
“And there is no reason,” suggested Mrs. Vansittart, “why you should not go on doing a large business, as you say your method of producing malgamite is an absolute secret.”
“Absolute.”
“And the process is preserved in your memory only?” asked the lady, with a little glance towards him which would have awakened the vanity of wiser men than Percy Roden.
“Not in my memory,” he answered. “It is very long and technical, and I have other things to think of. It is in Von Holzen's head, which is a better one than mine.”
“And suppose Herr von Holzen should fall down and die, or be murdered, or something dramatic of that sort—what would happen?”