Mr. Coe, at all events, entertained no such prejudice against his guest; day by day he grew more communicative with him, and more solicitous to hear his opinions, with which he seldom failed to agree. The two men were in reality, as it was easy to see, as opposite in character as the poles. Mr. Balfour was, and apparently always had been, a man of pleasure; but he had seen men and cities, and his remarks were shrewd, and selfish, and worldly-wise enough. It was rarely that his talk ever strayed to matters of business, so that Solomon was perforce a listener; but that unambitious part he played to admiration.
Upon one occasion, however, their after-dinner converse happened to turn upon partnerships; Solomon urged their great convenience, how one man brought money and the other brains, and how pleasant it must be for the former to live at ease while the latter gathered honey for him, both for present use and for the wintry store. He rose with the familiar subject to quite a flight of poetry.
Mr. Balfour, with half-shut eves and a mocking smile, dilated upon the sentiment involved in such communities of enterprise, the sympathy engendered by them, and the happy social effects that were produced by them. His host either did not, or would not, perceive that these remarks were ironical, and pursued the subject to its details, proportions of profits, balance-sheets, etc., until Charles rose with a yawn, and left his two elders together.
"Well, Balfour," said Solomon, frankly, as soon as they were alone, "this talk reminds me of the matter that first introduced us to one another—your purchase of that outlying bit of the Crompton property, Wheal Danes."
[Illustration: "I WILL GIVE YOU A THOUSAND POUNDS FOR THAT CROMPTON
LOT.">[
"Ay," replied the other, carelessly lighting another cigar. It was quite wonderful to see how many cigars Mr. Balfour got through daily; you might have almost thought that he had been denied tobacco for years by his physician, and had only just been permitted to resume the habit.
"Yes; you disappointed me there immensely, I must confess. I went down to the sale on purpose to secure it."
"So you told me, or, at least, so I guessed from your manner; and yet I don't know why you should have been so sweet upon it. It's only a bare bit of ground with a round hole in it, close by the sea."
"That's all," said Solomon, puffing at his clay pipe. "What on earth could have made you buy it?"
"Well, I told you once. I lost my yacht off Turlock, when coming to England last autumn, and very nearly my life with it. When one escapes with a whole skin from such a storm as wrecked me there, the first piece of dry land one comes to seems very attractive. I happened to be cast ashore beneath that very spot, and so I took a fancy to it. If I had been a good Papist I should have built a chapel there to my patron saint in gratitude for my preservation; as it was, I resolved to erect a villa for myself there. It will have an excellent view, and the situation is healthy. If you seek for any other reason for the purchase, I have none to give you; it was a whim, if you like, but then I can afford to indulge my whims."