“Well, I give it up,” said Larry hopelessly. “What do you want?”
“I want both. My man must want me more than he wants Heaven itself, and he must give me all he has but honour. Such a man would be my slave! And such a man—oh, I'd just love to be bullied by him.”
For some moments Larry stood looking into the glowing black eyes, then said quietly, “May God send you such a man, little sister, or none at all.”
In a few weeks the Alberta Coal Mining and Development Company was an established fact. Mr. Waring-Gaunt approved of it and showed his confidence in the scheme by offering to take a large block of stock and persuade his friends to invest as well. He also agreed that it was important to the success of the scheme both that Mr. Gwynne should be the president of the company and that young Switzer should be its secretary. Mr. Gwynne's earnest request that he should become the treasurer of the company Mr. Waring-Gaunt felt constrained in the meantime to decline. He already had too many irons in the fire. But he was willing to become a director and to aid the scheme in any way possible. Before the end of the month such was the energy displayed by the new secretary of the company in the disposing of the stock it was announced that only a small block of about $25,000 remained unsold. A part of this Mr. Waring-Gaunt urged his brother-in-law to secure.
“Got twenty thousand myself, you know—looks to me like a sound proposition—think you ought to go in—what do you say, eh, what?”
“Very well; get ten or fifteen thousand for me,” said his brother-in-law.
Within two days Mr. Waring-Gaunt found that the stock had all been disposed of. “Energetic chap, that young Switzer,—got all the stock placed—none left, so he told me.”
“Did you tell him the stock was for me?” enquired Romayne.
“Of course, why not?”
“Probably that accounts for it. He would not be especially anxious to have me in.”