“No,” said Vilas; “I won’t drink with you.” He spoke so gently that the form of his refusal, usually interpreted as truculent, escaped the other’s notice. He also declined a cigar, apologetically asking permission to light one of his own cigarettes; then, as he sank into a velour-covered chair, apologized again for the particular attention he was bestowing upon the apartment, which he recognized as one of the suites de luxe of the hotel.
“`Parlour, bedroom, and bath,’” he continued, with a melancholy smile; “and `Lachrymae,’ and `A Reading from Homer.’ Sometimes they have `The Music Lesson,’ or `Winter Scene’ or `A Neapolitan Fisher Lad’ instead of `Lachrymae,’ but they always have `A Reading from Homer.’ When you opened the door, a moment ago, I had a very strong impression that something extraordinary would some time happen to me in this room.”
“Well,” suggested Corliss, “you refused a drink in it.”
“Even more wonderful than that,” said Ray, glancing about the place curiously. “It may be a sense of something painful that already has happened here—perhaps long ago, before your occupancy. It has a pathos.”
“Most hotel rooms have had something happen in them,” said Corliss lightly. “I believe the managers usually change the door numbers if what happens is especially unpleasant. Probably they change some of the rugs, also.”
“I feel–-” Ray paused, frowning. “I feel as if some one had killed himself here.”
“Then no doubt some of the rugs HAVE been changed.”
“No doubt.” The caller laughed and waved his hand in dismissal of the topic. “Well, Mr. Corliss,” he went on, shifting to a brisker tone, “I have come to make my fortune, too. You are Midas. Am I of sufficient importance to be touched?”
Valentine Corliss gave him sidelong an almost imperceptibly brief glance of sharpest scrutiny—it was like the wink of a camera shutter—but laughed in the same instant. “Which way do you mean that?”
“You have been quick,” returned the visitor, repaying that glance with equal swiftness, “to seize upon the American idiom. I mean: How small a contribution would you be willing to receive toward your support!”
Corliss did not glance again at Ray; instead, he looked interested in the smoke of his cigar. “`Contribution,’” he repeated, with no inflection whatever. “`Toward my support.’”
“I mean, of course, how small an investment in your oil company.”
“Oh, anything, anything,” returned the promoter, with quick amiability. “We need to sell all the stock we can.”
“All the money you can get?”
“Precisely. It’s really a colossal proposition, Mr. Vilas.” Corliss spoke with brisk enthusiasm. “It’s a perfectly certain enormous profit upon everything that goes in. Prince Moliterno cables me later investigations show that the oil-field is more than twice as large as we thought when I left Naples. He’s on the ground now, buying up what he can, secretly.”
“I had an impression from Richard Lindley that the secret had been discovered.”
“Oh, yes; but only by a few, and those are trying to keep it quiet from the others, of course.”
“I see. Does your partner know of your success in raising a large investment?”
“You mean Lindley’s? Certainly.” Corliss waved his hand in light deprecation. “Of course that’s something, but Moliterno would hardly be apt to think of it as very large! You see he’s putting in about five times that much, himself, and I’ve already turned over to him double it for myself. Still, it counts—certainly; and of course it will be a great thing for Lindley.”
“I fear,” Ray said hesitatingly, “you won’t be much interested in my drop for your bucket. I have twelve hundred dollars in the world; and it is in the bank—I stopped there on my way here. To be exact, I have twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents. My dear sir, will you allow me to purchase one thousand dollars’ worth of stock? I will keep the two hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents to live on—I may need an egg while waiting for you to make me rich. Will you accept so small an investment?”
“Certainly,” said Corliss, laughing. “Why not? You may as well profit by the chance as any one. I’ll send you the stock certificates—we put them at par. I’m attending to that myself, as our secretary, Mr. Madison, is unable to take up his duties.”
Vilas took a cheque-book and a fountain-pen from his pocket.
“Oh, any time, any time,” said Corliss cheerfully, observing the new investor’s movement.
“Now, I think,” returned Vilas quietly. “How shall I make it out?”
“Oh, to me, I suppose,” answered Corliss indifferently. “That will save a little trouble, and I can turn it over to Moliterno, by cable, as I did Lindley’s. I’ll give you a receipt–-“
“You need not mind that,” said Ray. “Really it is of no importance.”
“Of course the cheque itself is a receipt,” remarked Corliss, tossing it carelessly upon a desk. “You’ll have some handsome returns for that slip of paper, Mr. Vilas.”
“In that blithe hope I came,” said Ray airily.
“I am confident of it. I have my own ways of divination, Mr. Corliss. I have gleams.” He rose as if to go, but stood looking thoughtfully about the apartment again. “Singular impression,” he murmured. “Not exactly as if I’d seen it in a dream; and yet—and yet–-“
“You have symptoms of clairvoyance at times, I take it.” The conscious, smooth superiority of the dexterous man playing with an inconsequent opponent resounded in this speech, clear as the humming of a struck bell; and Vilas shot him a single open glance of fire from hectic eyes. For that instant, the frailer buck trumpeted challenge. Corliss—broad-shouldered, supple of waist, graceful and strong—smiled down negligently; yet the very air between the two men seemed charged with an invisible explosive. Ray laughed quickly, as in undisturbed good nature; then, flourishing his stick, turned toward the door.
“Oh, no, it isn’t clairvoyance—no more than when I told you that your only real interest is women. He paused, his hand upon the door-knob. “I’m a quaint mixture, however: perhaps I should be handled with care.”
