“Yes,” said Mr. Petre rapidly, “at both ends.”
“Buying and selling,” said Terrard.
“Obviously,” said Mr. Petre.
There, at least, he was on firm ground. So much was clear. If somebody bought a thing some one else must sell it. It was a relief to understand one thing, anyhow, in the rigmarole. He halted with his back to the light.
“Besides which,” said Terrard, “you don’t want to be bothered with other people. I know you’ll take it or leave it, and I wanted to put it before you now and at once. I don’t know if you’re following our London site-values, Mr. Petre? No doubt you’ve handled such things in your time?”
“It is very good of you,” said Mr. Petre. He was miserable within; he felt himself being led on, but what he dreaded most was an agony of doubt and delay; for he saw himself arguing and re-approached and his other ventures quoted. If once he allowed the series to accumulate upon him one pressure and question after another, suggestion following suggestion, in the end he would be corralled and find himself right up against that fatal day when his awful riddle should be published to others before he had solved it himself. A man’s judgment in such suffering is that of a thing hunted, unbased, perhaps instinctive, at any rate precipitate; and Charlie was astonished to hear the words solemnly and simply pronounced by the standing figure at the window, who looked at him with a sort of forensic severity.
“Well, Mr. Terrard, you have convinced me.”
“Mr. Petre, Mr. Petre,” said Charlie Terrard in the agony of his relief and the whirlwind of such expectations suddenly realized. “I am undertaking a great responsibility! Do not be rushed on account of what I have just said! I do not pretend for a moment that there is an immediate market. I do not believe there is.”
“No,” said Mr. Petre, sitting down again. “No. Quite so,” as if it were the smallest matter in the world.
“But the mere fact that your name—if you will allow it to be known, after the transaction.... Well, you see, it would mean a great deal. They would take it for granted that you were going to build, or at any rate they would know that you hadn’t done it without knowing what you were at.”