“I haven’t once looked into it; and here’s the proof,” he said, taking it still unopened from his pocket.
“So you haven’t seen my advertisement?”
“Your advertisement?—no—did you insert one?”
“Do you remember our talk at your office?”
Van Arlen had not forgotten it for one moment, and if Prigson had paid more attention to him, and less to Caroline and Leida (who, in fact, were very pretty girls), he would have noticed that Van Arlen’s looks continually took the vague direction which indicated that his mind was elsewhere. His wife, who noticed it, ascribed it to the responsibilities of his office; his daughters were thinking, this evening, more of their uncle than of him. Certainly papa was the very type of a handsome man, but uncle had something very distinguished about him—especially since Leida had told them about seeing him in the club.
“What advertisement is that, brother?” asked Mrs Van Arlen.
“Oh, my dear Hortense, it belongs to those matters which ladies can’t understand; but if it comes to anything, and Van Arlen is willing to take a hand in it, he has only to say the word. You can make your fortune over it, Van Arlen.”
The word “fortune” awakened in the Van Arlens a feeling which used to come over them day by day, and had as regularly to be suppressed. Now, however, they were able to give way to it for a moment, and Van Arlen himself—still under the influence of what he had endured that afternoon—looked at Van Noost Prigson with interest.
“How could that be done?” asked Mrs Van Arlen almost indifferently; while all the girls, holding their breath, looked at Prigson in order to form their own conclusions as to whether his project were practicable.
“In the first place, you would have to give up your situation; in the next, to leave the place; and in the third, to work rather harder than you do at present; but, on the other hand, you would earn six times as much money.”