At the luncheon table Mackeller’s long telegram was handed to him, and, after he had read it, Stranleigh smiled as he thought how nearly its arrival had coincided with Schwartzbrod’s visit, and he wondered how much the latter would give for its perusal if he knew of its existence. He surmised that the Stock Exchange magnate was becoming a little anxious because of the nonarrival of the Rajah at Lisbon, where, doubtless, his emissaries awaited her. In spite of his pretense of misapprehension, he had heard quite distinctly at the telephone receiver that Schwartz-brod had just learned he was the owner of the Rajah, and that he wished to renew his charter of that slow-going, deliberate steam vessel, but he could not deny himself the pleasure of crossquestioning so crafty an opponent face to face. He had been expecting an application from Conrad Schwartzbrod for some days, and now it had arrived almost too late, for he directed Ponderby to secure him a berth on the Plymouth express for that night.
The young nobleman did not receive the elderly capitalist in his business office downstairs, as perhaps would have been the more suitable, but greeted him instead in the ample and luxurious drawing-room on the first floor, where Stranleigh, enjoying the liberty of a bachelor, was smoking an after-luncheon cigar, and he began the interview by offering a similar one to his visitor, which was declined. Mr. Schwartzbrod, it seemed, never smoked.
The furtive old man was palpably nervous and ill at ease. He sat on the extreme edge of an elegant chair, and appeared not to know exactly what to do with his hands. The news which had reached him from Sparling & Bilge in Southampton, that Lord Stranleigh was the new owner of the Rajah, had disquieted Schwartzbrod, and his manner showed this to his indolent host, who lounged back in an easy-chair, calmly viewing the newcomer with an expression of countenance that was almost cherublike in its innocence.
“Sorry you don’t smoke,” drawled the younger man. “You miss a great deal of pleasure in life by your abstention.”
“It is a habit I never acquired, my lord, and so perhaps I do not feel the lack of it so much as one accustomed to tobacco might suppose. I lead a very busy life, and, indeed, a somewhat anxious one, since times are so bad in the city, therefore I have little opportunity of cultivating what I might call—I hope with no offense—the smaller vices.”
“Ah, there speaks a large trader. You go in for the big things in life, whether in finance or in vice.”
“I hope I may say without vanity, my lord, that I have always avoided vice, large or small.”