Whatever you
do will be right. I know so little of these things--and
you know so much."
Thorpe put out his lips a trifle, and looked away
for an instant in frowning abstraction. "If it were
put in that way--I think I should sell," he said.
"It's all right for me to take long chances--it's my
game--but there's no reason why you should risk things.
But let me put it in still another way," he added,
with the passing gleam of a new thought over the dull
surface of his eye. "What do you say to our making
the transaction strictly between ourselves? Here are
shares to bearer, in the safe there. I say that two
thousand of them are yours: that makes them yours.
I give you my cheque for thirty thousand pounds--here, now,
if you like--and that makes them mine again.
The business is finished and done with--inside this room.
Neither of us is to say anything about it to a soul.
Does that meet your views?"
The diplomat pondered the proposition--again with a lengthened
perturbation of the eyelids. "It would be possible to suggest
a variety of objections, if one were of a sophistical
turn of mind," he said at last, smilingly reflective.
"Yet I see no really insuperable obstacle in the path."
He thought upon it further, and went on with an enquiring
upward glance directed suddenly at Thorpe: "Is there
likely to be any very unpleasant hubbub in the press--when
it is known that the annual meeting has been postponed?"
Thorpe shook his head with confidence.
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