"With good news, I hope," Mrs. Cary sighed. "I also am no sort of a business woman, but I understand enough to know that if one invests money in an honest concern one gets interest sooner or later. And so far the Marut Company hasn't paid me a penny piece."
Nehal Singh started slightly, and his glance wandered to the red face of the speaker with an expression that was akin to fear.
"An honest concern!" he repeated. "Do you mean that—that it is not honest?"
Mrs. Cary beamed with recovered equanimity.
"Good gracious! How could you suppose I should mean such a horrid thing, dear Prince! Of course everything to which you put your hand is hall-marked. Otherwise I should never have dreamed of investing my money in the Marut Company."
There was a silence. The Colonel drummed with his fingers on the table, watching the native sentry who passed stolidly backward and forward in front of the closed windows. Mrs. Cary fanned herself and exchanged whispered comments with Mrs. Berry on the opposite side. Beatrice remained motionless. From the beginning of the meeting she had once raised her eyes—on Nehal Singh's entry—and then it had been for no more than a second. That second had been enough. She had seen his face. She had seen—and it was not her imagination, but a real and bitter irony—that of all the people in the room she alone had been the object of his quiet greeting. She knew then—for her eyes had not lost their keenness—that the eighteen months in which they had scarcely met had made no difference to him. He still reverenced and loved her. For him she was still "Lakshmi," the goddess of beauty and perfection; for him she was still the ideal, the woman of goodness and truth and purity. Her victory over him had been complete, eternal. She had betrayed him and retained him. Of all her triumphs over men and circumstances this was the most perfect. Yet she sat there, white and still, not lifting her eyes from the table, and seemingly unconscious of all that went on about her.
Presently a carriage drove up the avenue. They heard Travers' voice giving some orders, and a moment later he himself entered, followed by a Mr. Medway, his chief mining engineer. He closed the door and with a grave bow took his place at the table. He seemed indifferent to or unaware of the curious and somewhat anxious glances which were turned toward him. There was something in his appearance which cast an unpleasant chill over every one of the little assembly. Even the Colonel, though an outsider, felt himself disagreeably impressed by Travers' new bearing, and the good-natured banter which he had held in readiness for the new arrival died away on his lips as he responded to the cold, formal bow. For some minutes no one spoke. Travers was busy arranging some papers which he had brought with him, and only when he had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking in his composed features.
"Colonel Carmichael and honorable share-holders in the Marut Diamond Company," he began, "you are no doubt wondering why I have called this private meeting. I do so because you are the chief partakers in the concern, and because, as my friends, I wish to offer you an explanation which I do not feel bound to offer to the other share-holders within and without Marut. This excuse does not hold good for you, Colonel Carmichael, and you must feel I am encroaching heavily on your valuable time. Nevertheless, I assure you that your presence will assist me considerably in my difficult task."
"I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything in my power," Colonel Carmichael responded, "but I fear my knowledge of intricate business details is not such as to make it of the slightest use to you."
"The business is not intricate," Travers went on. "Nor do I propose drawing out this meeting to any tiring length. The heat must be very trying for the ladies present, but my wish to keep what passes between us, at any rate for the time being, entirely secret, makes it essential to sit in closed rooms. I will be as brief as possible. Two years ago the Marut Diamond Company first came into existence under the protection of our friend, Rajah Nehal Singh. For some time previous to this event it had been my great ambition to open out a diamond field in which, thanks to favorable reports, I sincerely believed. My position, however, and above all my lack of personal means, made the scheme an impossibility so far as I was concerned. Chance brought me the pleasure and misfortune of making your acquaintance, Rajah. I say 'misfortune,' because, as events have turned, I can not but feel that my casual observations led you to enter into an enterprise before which another man, if I may say so, with more experience and less impulse, would have hesitated.