“I wish you had told me of this before!” The president fumed. “This may cause a vast amount of trouble. However, I am glad to be assured that you were not victimized by this person. By the way, this is not my custom—in fact it is emphatically against my rule, especially where officers of the company are concerned—but I shall be glad to make an exception in your case, Storm. I may be able to give you a little advance information, strictly confidential, you understand, on a certain investment later, if you are looking for one.”
“Thank you, Mr. Langhorne. I’m not thinking of making any just now.” He smiled again, reading the other’s motive, and added pointedly: “I have mentioned the Du Chainat letter to no one else, of course, nor shall I do so.”
The president flushed but dismissed him with forced cordiality, and Storm returned to his own sanctum in a bitter mood. Even the small satisfaction of believing that Langhorne, too, had fallen for the alluring proposition was denied him!
At noon, as he left the trust company building to go to the luncheon club of which he was a member, he collided with Millard.
“Hello, there! Just coming in to see you.” The little man’s usually apoplectic face was pale, and his small, beady eyes shifted nervously beneath Storm’s gaze. “Where are you off to?”
“Lunch,” replied the other briefly. Confound the little golf hound! It was he who got him into the Du Chainat affair!
“Then have it with me, do!” Millard urged. “I want to talk to you. Let’s run in to Peppini’s where we can be quiet.”
Storm was on the point of refusal, but something in the other’s manner made him change his mind.
“If you like.” He turned, and Millard fell into step beside him. “How’s the golf coming along?”
“Hang golf!” Millard exploded. “I’ve had other things on my mind, Storm, old chap! I’ve been in the very devil of a hole, and Mrs. M.—well, you know what she is when she has got anything on me! I haven’t had a minute’s peace.”