Lang sat silent for a minute. He had not bargained for this. He had felt willing enough to prosecute the plan he himself had suggested to Mrs. Mortomley without any immediate revelations being made to him concerning the manipulation of those choicer colours for which the Mortomleys had long been famous, but he was not prepared for the frank assurance that Mrs. Mortomley intended to leave him out in the cold for ever. He intended to be utterly true to the Mortomleys; but, at the same time, he desired naturally to serve himself, and he believed he could never hope to do that effectually unless he were made acquainted with the means whereby his late employer had produced those effects which rendered the Homewood works celebrated wherever colours were bought and sold.
Who would have supposed that a lady who twelve months before could not have told ochre from umber should all at once develop such an amount of business capacity as to understand precisely which way Mr. Lang's desires led, and at once put a padlock on the gate by which he hoped to reach his goal?
Mr. Lang sat and thought this over as thoroughly as the state of his head would permit, and Dolly sat and watched him anxiously. She was determined not to yield a point; and yet if Lang decided to have nothing to do with those still unopened works, the idea of which had been originated by himself, she failed to see what she should unaided be able to accomplish.
At last Lang spoke. "I think you are hard upon me, ma'am. If I do my best to work up a business for Mr. Mortomley, it seems only justice I should have some benefit from it."
"That is quite true," agreed Mrs. Mortomley.
"But I cannot have any tangible benefit unless—"
"Go on," said Dolly as he paused, "or shall I finish the sentence for you—unless we take you so far into our confidence that we could not safely throw you over."
"I do not think, ma'am, you ought to put it in that way," remarked Lang, who naturally disliked such explicit utterances.
"If you can suggest any better way in which to put it, pray do so," she replied. "The fact is, Lang, one or other of us must have faith—you in me, or I in you. Now I think it is you who ought to have faith in me, because so far as anything is mine to trust, you shall have perfect control over it. I must put the most utter confidence in your honesty, your skill, and your industry. The only trust I withhold is that which is not mine to give, which belongs entirely to my husband; but this much I will say, Lang,—if hereafter, when Mr. Mortomley's health is re-established, differences should arise among us, and you desire to leave, I would most earnestly ask him to mark his sense of all you have done and tried to do for me by giving you two or three receipts, which might enable you to carry on a small business successfully on your own account."
"You would do that, ma'am?"