"Poison!" I this time muttered audibly.
"Where did you get it?" said she, snappishly. For it began to dawn upon her that I was not poisoned at all, but had discovered her secret. I turned my thumb languidly in the direction of under the pillow. She hastily thrust in her hand and pulled out the empty bottle. "You fool"—she actually used this expression; I have heard other ladies do the same—"you fool," and she was literally furious, "what did you go poking under the pillow for? You are no more poisoned than I am; it is a draught I am obliged to take for nervous depression, and your imagination has almost frightened you into a fit. I put 'poison' on it to keep the servants from prying. Come, get up, be a man—do," and Lady Broadhem gave me her hand, in consideration for my weakness to help myself up by.
"Dearest Lady Broadhem," said I, pressing it to my lips, "I cannot tell what comfort you give me. I was just beginning to regret the world I thought I was about to leave for ever, when your assurance that I have not taken poison, but a tonic, makes me feel as grateful to you as if you had saved my life. I confess that, when I found that you considered your affairs to be so desperate that you had provided the most effectual mode of escape from them, I envied the superior foresight which you had displayed, and determined to repair my error. If it is worth dear Lady Broadhem's while to poison herself, I thought, it is surely worth mine. But, after all, suicide is a cowardly act either in a man or a woman; better far face the ills of life with the aid of stimulants, than fly for refuge in the agony of a financial crisis to the shop of an apothecary."
"You are an incomprehensible creature, Frank," said Lady Broadhem; "I am sure I hope for her own sake that Ursula will understand you better than I do; but as your humours are uncertain, and you seem able to go into these affairs now, I think we had better not waste any more time; only I do wish" (with a wistful glance at the bottle) "you would provide yourself with your own draughts in future."
"How lucky," thought I, as I put on a business-like air, and methodically began arranging the papers according to their docquets. "Now, if it had been just the other way, and her ladyship had taken the draught instead of me, how completely I should have been at her mercy? Now I am master of the situation."
"'Greek loan, thirty thousand,'" I read, going down the list; "I am afraid this is rather a losing business. I see they have been already held over for some months. I suppose some of the £27,000 is to be absorbed there."
"Yes," said Lady Broadhem; "because if I can carry on for another fortnight, I have got information which makes it certain I shall recover on them."
"What is this? five hundred pounds' worth of dollar bonds?" I went on.
"Oh, I only lost a few pounds on them. I bought them at threepence apiece and sold them at twopence. Spiffy got me to take them off his hands, and, in fact, made a great favour of it, as he says there is nothing people make money more surely out of than dollar bonds."
"Bubbs's Eating-house and Cigar Divan Company, Holborn. Well, there is a strong direction. How do you come by so many shares?"