'You shall have it in yellow and white,' said the old man. 'And now in return you shall grant me a favour—your name as a director of the Ophir Gold Mining Company.'
'My name is Trecarrel,' answered the Captain, freezingly.
'I know that well enough—that is why I want it.'
'And that is precisely why you shall not have it.'
'You refuse me this favour?'
'Emphatically. I do not believe in Ophir.'
The old man drummed with his fingers on the table, and raised his eyes furtively to the Captain, met his cold, supercilious stare, and dropped them again.
'Well! go into the drawing-room, and patch up the rent with Orange.'
Then, when the Captain was gone, Tramplara laughed heartily. 'By Grogs!' he said, 'who would have thought the fellow so keen? He don't look it.'
The Captain found Orange standing in the drawing-room leaning against the mantel-piece, tearing a white lily that she had plucked out of a vase into many pieces. Her fingers were stained with the pollen. Her cheeks were flushed, and an angry glitter was in her eyes, twinkling through tears of mortified pride.