But if the kind old Cabinet Minister had no notion what it was all about, he was an expert compared with Mr. Petre. Mr. Petre, though his hearing was quite sound, might as well have been listening to a babel of rooks. What were Touaregs? Where were the deposits? What of? How did the French Government come in? How do you square a Government? What was a Commissioner? Who was Billy Wootton and with what instrument did he perform his rite? And up what did Touaregs go, or down what, and in what were they steady? What was it all about?
The eager judgment and counter-judgment, argument, affirmation, bluff, falsehoods, tips, went back and forth in an amazing game: for it is a game where every one plays his own hand, and where the number of relations is the square of all those present. But it is a game which works to a climax and then halts or languishes; it is a fire of thorns, burning very quickly to ash; and Mr. Petre, dazed in the babel and thanking his stars that it prevented questions which might have destroyed his peace, was alarmed to find that the subject drooped and that gaps of silence appeared.
At any moment the whole talk might turn; it might be a point-blank question on his home, or some other matter in which he would be agonized to reply. He was desperately concluding that he must take the first step and say something to lead Mrs. Cyril on till some word of hers should tell him what he did not know, when, just in time, at the end of a silence longer than the rest, the decisive thing happened.
The young broker, Charlie Terrard, deliberately said, looking at Mr. Petre with a slightly quizzical look:
“Well, sir, what do you think of them?” To which he bluntly added, “You know more about it than most of us.”
One or two of the less controlled faces took on an awkward look, the others went suddenly blank. The two ex-Lord Chancellors exchanged glances covertly and both half smiled:—certainly Terrard had done a monstrous thing! But then, great men like John K. are often straightforward, and sometimes eccentricity of that sort pleases them. They all waited for the answer, not breathing.
Mr. Petre was in torture. If he admitted complete ignorance, what would follow? If he pretended knowledge, he would blunder irretrievably. They were not helping him as he had hoped; they were putting him into a fearful crux.
He made one last desperate effort to fence. He leaned forward with a poised and equal look, like a man who has something to say, and put such a question as he hoped must draw information and help. He said: “What exactly do you mean?”
Young Terrard, having gone so far, went farther, and said with awful simplicity, “Why, Mr. Petre, I mean, would you buy or sell Touaregs? Now, this afternoon?”
The silence turned to ebony; the daring seemed too great, and in her heart of hearts Mrs. Cyril feared a scene. Then Mr. Petre spoke, and decided his fate.