He whistled exultantly as he changed from one somber suit of mourning to another, and only paused when a casual glance in the mirror brought home to him with a shock the incongruity between his expression and his attire. He threw back his shoulders defiantly.
“The past is dead!” he muttered. “Three months, and I shall be free to forget!”
Monsieur du Chainat met him in the hotel lobby and greeted him with undiminished enthusiasm.
“I am delighted, Monsieur, that you find yourself interested,” he remarked, after their order had been given. “Since I telephoned to you an hour ago I have received yet another offer to take up the loan, this from an associate of Monsieur Whitmarsh, whom he must have consulted; a Monsieur Nicholas Langhorne. You perhaps have heard of him?”
Storm nodded.
“I know him,” he said briefly, forbearing to add that the gentleman in question was the president of the Trust Company which he ornamented with his presence. To get ahead of old Langhorne! That would be gratification enough were the profits cut to a minimum.
“I have replied to him that the affair is already under consideration”—Monsieur du Chainat poised a fragment of hors d’oeuvre gracefully upon his fork,—“but should you not, after examining the documents I have brought, desire to close, Monsieur, I will see him to-morrow.”
“ ‘To-morrow!’ ” Storm echoed in dismay. “I should like a little longer time than that in which to decide. It may take me some days to convert my capital into cash, and there are other contingencies——”
“But Monsieur forgets that to me time is of paramount importance.” The Frenchman’s face had clouded. “It is for that we pay one hundred per cent interest in three months! When I have acquired the loan I do not even wait for the ship which takes me back; I cable to my beau-père the money, that the work may start without an hour’s delay. You comprehend, Monsieur, how urgent is our need by the extent of our sacrifice. I shall have an inheritance from my uncle soon, and I shall aid Père Peronneau in paying off the government loan for which he is responsible when he repays it with the debt we incur here. There is the sentiment as well as the business, as I told you last night, Monsieur. If you could but see the beau-père——”
He drew a simple but graphic word picture of the old manufacturer, but his listener was distrait. Could he get the fifty thousand from Foulkes at such short order, to say nothing of arranging the mortgage on the Greenlea house? Monsieur du Chainat’s haste seemed plausible enough, and then there was Langhorne only too ready to snap up the prize!