“Is he really?” remarked the millionaire. “Then Max doesn’t know as much about him as I do.”
“What?” asked Marion in quick alarm. “Isn’t he all that he pretends to be?”
“No, he isn’t. I must see Barclay to-morrow—the first thing to-morrow. I wonder if he’s put any money into the venture?”
“Of that I don’t know. He only told me that it would mean a big fortune.”
“So it would—if it were genuine.”
“Then isn’t it genuine?” she asked anxiously.
“Genuine! Why, of course not! Nothing that Jean Adam has anything to do with, my dear young lady, is ever genuine. Depend upon it that his Majesty the Sultan will never grant any such concession. He fears Bulgaria far too much. If it could have been had, I may tell you at once I should already have had it. There is, as you say, a big thing to be made out of it—a very big thing. But while the Sultan lives the line will never be constructed. Pachitch, the Prime Minister of Servia, told me so the last time I was in Belgrade, and I’m entirely of his opinion.”
“But what you tell me regarding Mr Adam surprises me.”
“Ah! you are still young, Miss Rolfe! You have many surprises yet in store for you,” he replied with a light laugh. “Do you know Adam personally?”
“Yes.”