“What’s new?” he asked.
“In Northumberland? Nothing—beyond the usual thing. Everybody is back—everybody is hard 218 up or says he is—everybody is full of lies, as usual, and is turning them loose on anyone who will listen, credulous or sophisticated, it makes no difference. It’s the telling, not the believing that’s the thing. Oh! the little cad Mattison is engaged—Charlotte Brundage has landed him, and the wedding is set for early next month.”
“I don’t envy her the job,” Croyden remarked.
“It won’t bother her!” Macloud laughed. “She’ll be privileged to draw on his bank account, and that’s the all important thing with her. He will fracture the seventh commandment, and she won’t turn a hair. She is a chilly proposition, all right.”
“Well, I wish her joy of her bargain,” said Croyden. “May she have everything she wants, and see Mattison not at all, after the wedding journey—and but very occasionally, then.”
He took up the letters and ran carelessly through them.
“Trash! Trash! Trash!” he commented, as he consigned them, one by one, to the waste-basket.
Macloud watched him, languidly, behind his cigar smoke, and made no comment.
Presently Croyden came to a large, white envelope—darkened on the interior so as to prevent the contents from being read until opened. It bore the name of a firm of prominent brokers in Northumberland.
“Humph! Blaxham & Company!” he grunted. “‘We own and offer, subject to prior sale, the 219 following high grade investment bonds.’ Oh yes! I’ll take the whole bundle.” He drew out the letter and looked at it, perfunctorily, before sending it to rest with its fellows.—It wasn’t in the usual form.—He opened it, wider.—It was signed by the senior partner.