Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

"All right," said Geoffrey, sitting up. "What sort of a time did you have? Old people well?"

Jack was supposed to have been in Halifax, where his parents lived with the other old English families there.

"Yes, I had a pretty good time," said Jack. "The old people are fine!" he added, freshly. "How are things in the bank?"

Geoffrey then retired to his bath-room, and an intermittent conversation about the bank and other matters went on for a few minutes during the pauses created by cold water and splashing.

It was a relief to Jack that neither at breakfast nor afterward did Geoffrey ask any more questions about his fortnight's holiday. Hampstead knew better.

During the next six weeks Geoffrey was decidedly unsettled. "Federal" went up as a matter of course, and he sold out with advantage. He cleared five thousand dollars on this transaction, and had now a capital of fifteen thousand dollars. He was rather lucky in his venture into the stock market. His experience on Wall Street had given him a keen insight into such matters, and he studied probabilities until his chances of failure were reduced, keeping up a correspondence by telegraph and letter with his old Wall Street employers who, in a friendly way, shared with him some of their best knowledge.

Immediately after he had sold out "Federal" an American railway magnate died. This man almost owned an American railway which was operating and leasing a Canadian railway. No sooner was the death known than the stock of the Canadian Railway took a tumble. For a moment public confidence in it seemed to be lost. Now Geoffrey had studied chances as to this line. He knew that it was one of the few Canadian railways that under fair management was able to pay a periodical dividend—a small one at times, perhaps, but always something. It did not go on for years without paying a cent like some of the others. He had waited for this millionaire to die in order to buy the largely depreciated stock. When the opportunity arrived he bought on margin a very large quantity of it at a low figure. But the trouble was that the public did not agree with him and the few cool heads who tried to keep quiet, hold on, and wait till things reinstated themselves. An ordinary man's chances in the stock market do not depend upon his own sagacity more than does guessing at next week's weather. Fortunes are lost, like lives, not from the threatened danger but from panic. Bad rumors about the railway were afloat and the stock continued to go down. Geoffrey hastily sold out his other stocks for what he could get, and stuffed everything available into the widening gap through which forces seemed to be entering to overwhelm him.

In the meantime while Nina was at Lockport, Jack had gone on quietly with his work in the Victoria Bank. He had not given notice of his intentions to leave that institution, because, after his return, he had thought he would like to take more money than he had already saved to California with him. His brother had written previously to say that he ought to bring with him at least three thousand dollars, to put into the business of grape-farming, and Jack thought if he could only hold on at the bank, where he was fairly well paid, he might in a few months complete the sum required. Already he had put away over twenty-five hundred dollars, and it would not take long to save the balance.

Nina came back from Lockport blaming herself for her former unreasoning infatuation for Geoffrey. Hers was a nature that had of necessity to lavish its affection on something or somebody. If she could have given this affection, or part of it, to her own mother it would have been a valuable outlet in these later years. The confidences that ought to have existed between them would then have been the first links to be sundered when she sought Hampstead's society.

Unluckily Mrs. Lindon was not in every way perfect. While she had continued to be "not weary in well doing," as she called it, her daughter had been gradually commencing to consider how her duties and social law might be evaded. While Mrs. Lindon visited the Haven and listened to the stories of the women there which were always so interesting to her, and while she expended her time in ways that her gossip-loving nature sought, her daughter had been left the most defenseless person imaginable.