Then, swiftly, illogically, he disliked
the brother of this lady more than ever.
"All that is talking in the air," he said,
with abrupt decision. "I see nothing in it. You shall
have your vendor's shares, precisely as I promised you.
I don't see how you can possibly ask for anything more."
He looked at the other's darkling face for a moment,
and then rose with unwieldy deliberation. "If you're
so hard up though," he continued, coldly, "I don't mind
doing this much for you. I'll exchange the thousand
vendor's shares you already hold the ones I gave you
to qualify you at the beginning--for ordinary shares.
You can sell those for fifteen thousand pounds cash.
In fact, I'll buy them of you now. I'll give you a cheque
for the amount. Do you want it?"
Lord Plowden, red-faced and frowning, hesitated for a
fraction of time. Then in constrained silence he nodded,
and Thorpe, leaning ponderously over the desk, wrote out
the cheque. His Lordship took it, folded it up, and put
it in his pocket without immediate comment.
"Then this is the end of things, is it?" he asked,
after an awkward silence, in a voice he strove in vain
to keep from shaking.
"What things?" said the other.
Plowden shrugged his shoulders, framed his lips to utter
something which he decided not to say, and at last turned
on his heel.
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