“Eight weeks. Thank you,” said the Colossus dryly. And he began to chew the end of his cigar.
“Think it over, my friend,” said Hierons, in a cheerful and business-like tone. “One thousand million dollars—paid down within three months. Think it over.”
“I will.” The Colossus knocked the ash from the end of his cigar. “I promise you that. And now perhaps you’ll let me out of this mousetrap.”
“For the time being, sir, the business is concluded.” And Lien Weng returned the keys of the room to the Frenchman and the American who promptly unlocked the doors of the library.
XXVIII
WITHIN the space of the eight weeks granted by the Society of the Friends of Peace for Saul Hartz’s decision, much was to happen to John Endor and to the inner world of politics in which he moved. Endor’s own life was linked so closely with the energies of the time that the recoil of events affected it deeply. Many strange, many pregnant, things were about to happen.
John’s first act on his return on the Monday to London from his rather nightmarish visit to Doe Hill was to communicate at once with Helen Sholto. He arranged that they should lunch together at a quiet restaurant in Soho.
Here, in privacy, with none to overhear and none to oversee, he unburdened his heart. He did not think well to let Helen know of the Society, much less of his own transactions with it: how in spite of some deep protesting instinct, he had been induced to take the oath of allegiance; how in the main he had yielded to the powerful arguments of their friend in common, George Hierons; and how, having taken the plunge with a full perception of all that it involved, he was ready to defend his action. For he now saw with a clearness greater than ever before, that the malign growth which was so rapidly eating its way to the core of the state must, no matter what the cost to the body politic, be at once cut out.
One thing, however, Endor decided to do. That was to tell Helen of the charge this man, Saul Hartz, had laid upon her good name. Such, indeed, was his real purpose in going to her at once. The impulse of his nature would not allow him a moment’s rest until the woman he loved was rescued from the clutches of the monster of infamy whom she was loyally serving.
Without preface Endor told her what Saul Hartz had said.