“Schooner-full.”
“I see. To be transhipped to Liverpool for experimental manufacture, eh? Eminent capitalists at home very much interested, aren’t they?”
“They are.”
A silence fell. Then the Editor uttered slowly—“You will be a rich man some day.”
Renouard’s face did not betray his opinion of that confident prophecy. He didn’t say anything till his friend suggested in the same meditative voice—
“You ought to interest Moorsom in the affair too—since Willie has let you in.”
“A philosopher!”
“I suppose he isn’t above making a bit of money. And he may be clever at it for all you know. I have a notion that he’s a fairly practical old cove. . . . Anyhow,” and here the tone of the speaker took on a tinge of respect, “he has made philosophy pay.”
Renouard raised his eyes, repressed an impulse to jump up, and got out of the arm-chair slowly. “It isn’t perhaps a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll have to call there in any case.”
He wondered whether he had managed to keep his voice steady, its tone unconcerned enough; for his emotion was strong though it had nothing to do with the business aspect of this suggestion. He moved in the room in vague preparation for departure, when he heard a soft laugh. He spun about quickly with a frown, but the Editor was not laughing at him. He was chuckling across the big desk at the wall: a preliminary of some speech for which Renouard, recalled to himself, waited silent and mistrustful.