“I imagine,” went on Sir John, “that the novelists and poets are not very far wrong. It seems that there is such a thing as a humdrum happiness in marriage. I have seen quite elderly people who seem still to take pleasure in each other's society. With the example of my own life before me, I wanted yours to be different. My motive was not entirely bad. But perhaps you know your own affairs best. What money have you?”
Jack moved uneasily in his chair.
“I have completed the sale of the last consignment of Simiacine,” he began categorically. “The demand for it has increased. We have now sold two hundred thousand pounds worth in England and America. My share is about sixty thousand pounds. I have invested most of that sum, and my present income is a little over two thousand a year.”
Sir John nodded gravely.
“I congratulate you,” he said; “you have done wonderfully well. It is satisfactory in one way, in that it shows that, if a gentleman chooses to go into these commercial affairs, he can do as well as the bourgeoisie. It leads one to believe that English gentlemen are not degenerating so rapidly as I am told the evening Radical newspapers demonstrate for the trifling consideration of one halfpenny. But”—he paused with an expressive gesture of the hand—“I should have preferred that this interesting truth had been proved by the son of some one else.”
“I think,” replied Jack, “that our speculation hardly comes under the category of commerce. It was not money that was at risk, but our own lives.”
Sir John's eyes hardened.
“Adventure,” he suggested rather indistinctly, “travel and adventure. There is a class of men one meets frequently who do a little exploring and a great deal of talking. Faute de mieux, they do not hesitate to interest one in the special pill to which they resort when indisposed, and they are not above advertising a soap. You are not going to write a book, I trust?”
“No. It would hardly serve our purpose to write a book.”
“In what way?” inquired Sir John.