“Not always,” said Eliphalet, thinking of Bulmore. “With some men friendship stands on a higher plane.”
“Well, I may say, Cardomay, that you have strained friendship almost to a breaking-point,” commented the obese Mr. Shingles. “Here’s half the autumn gone, and nothing done. Still, if you have come back admitting yourself to be in fault—well—— But what do you say, Doctor?”
“No good harbouring ill-feeling. We may as well carry on, but since we’ve lost so much time and all the best dates, the question of reduced percentage asserts itself,” said Mr. Wardluke.
And thus the thin edge of the wedge implanted itself daintily into the future fortunes of Eliphalet Cardomay. When he left the meeting he had lost ground, and what was left before him was perilously insecure.
On arriving home he sent a letter to Bulmore asking him to supper, and spent the time of waiting purchasing and laying out a really sumptuous spread. In his breast-pocket there was a bulge of banknotes, representing the cashing of Mr. Eastlake’s cheque.
“Ha, ha!” he cried when old Bulmore, looking rather down and out, came into the room. “Here’s the man who brought me luck. Congratulate me, my dear old fellow, for I open again in my own management in a month’s time.”
His tone rang with enthusiasm, and all through the meal he held forth upon the advantageous terms he had arranged with his syndicate and the big success forecasted for the play.
Poor Sefton Bulmore could hardly fail to feel rather out in the cold, but he did his best to reflect the cheerful mood of his host. The effort was pathetically transparent, however, as Eliphalet noted with satisfaction.
“Yes, yes, and to tell you the truth, Bulmore, I was a bit low. That thirty-five guineas you put me in the way of earning was a godsend. But now! they can’t do enough—insisted on my accepting a big advance.” And he flourished a wad of notes before Bulmore’s hungry eyes.
With all the will in the world, the old fellow could not help wishing his friend would be a trifle less arrogant about his finances. It is a severe test on a man who has nothing in his pockets to resist envying one who has so much, especially when he knows that but for a flash of generosity some of that money would have been his own.