The Prime Minister

in a bad condition, very violent, drinking hard, declaring himself to be a ruined man, and swearing that if this and that were not done he would have bitter revenge. Sexty still believed in the wealth of his partner’s father-in-law, and still had some hope of salvation from that source. Lopez would declare to him, and up to this very time persevered in protesting, that salvation was to be found in Bios. If Sexty would only risk two or three thousand pounds more upon Bios⁠—or his credit to that amount, failing the immediate money⁠—things might still be right. “Bios be d⁠⸺,” said Sexty, uttering a string of heavy imprecations. On that morning he had been trusting to native produce rather than to the new African spirit. But now as the Guatemala scheme really took form and loomed on Lopez’s eyesight as a thing that might be real, he endeavoured to keep out of Sexty’s way. But in vain; Sexty too had heard of Guatemala, and in his misery hunted Lopez about the city. “By G⁠⸺, I believe you’re afraid to come to Little Tankard Yard,” he said one day, having caught his victim under the equestrian statue in front of the Exchange.

“What is the good of my coming when you will do nothing when I am there?”

“I’ll tell you what it is, Lopez⁠—you’re not going out of the country about this mining business, if I know it.”

“Who said I was?”

“I’ll put a spoke in your wheel there, my man. I’ll give a written account of all the dealings between us to the Directors. By G⁠⸺, they shall know their man.”

“You’re an ass, Sexty, and always were. Look here. If I can carry on as though I were going to this place, I can draw £5,000 from old Wharton. He has already offered it. He has treated me with a stinginess that I never knew equalled. Had he done what I had a right to expect, you and I would have been rich men now. But at last I have got a hold upon him up to £5,000. As you and I stand, pretty nearly the whole of that will go to you. But don’t you spoil it all by making an ass of yourself.”

Sexty, who was three parts drunk, looked up into his face for a few seconds, and then made his reply. “I’m d⁠⸺⁠d if I believe a word of it.” Upon this Lopez affected to laugh, and then made his escape.

All this, as I have said, did not tend to make his life happy. Though he had impudence enough, and callousness of conscience enough, to get his bills paid by Mr. Wharton as often as he could, he was not quite easy in his mind while doing so. His ambition had never been high, but it had soared higher than that. He had had great hopes. He had lived with some high people. He had dined with lords and ladies. He had been the guest of a Duchess. He had married the daughter of a gentleman. He had nearly been a member of Parliament. He still belonged to what he considered to be a first-rate club. From a great altitude he looked down upon Sexty Parker and men of Sexty’s class, because of his social successes, and because he knew how to talk and to look like a gentleman. It was unpleasant to him, therefore, to be driven to the life he was now living. And the idea of going out to Guatemala and burying himself in a mine in Central America was not to him a happy idea. In spite of all that he had done he had still some hope that he might avoid that banishment. He had spoken the truth to Sexty Parker in saying that he intended to get the £5,000 from Mr. Wharton without that terrible personal sacrifice, though he had hardly spoken the truth when he assured his friend that the greater portion of that money would go to him. There were many schemes fluctuating through his brain, and all accompanied by many doubts. If he could get Mr. Wharton’s money by giving up his wife, should he consent to give her up? In either case should he stay or should he go? Should he run one further great chance with Bios⁠—and if so, by whose assistance? And if he should at last decide that he would do so by the aid of a certain friend that was yet left to him, should he throw himself at that friend’s feet, the friend being a lady, and propose to desert his wife and begin the world again with her? For the lady in question was a lady in possession, as he believed, of very large means. Or should he cut his throat and have done at once with all his troubles, acknowledging to himself that his career had been a failure, and that, therefore, it might be brought with advantage to an end? “After all,” said he to himself, “that may be the best way of winding up a bankrupt concern.”

Our old friend Lady Eustace, in these days, lived in a very small house in a very small street bordering upon May Fair; but the street, though very small, and having disagreeable relations with a mews, still had an air of fashion about it. And with her lived the widow, Mrs. Leslie, who had introduced her to Mrs. Dick Roby, and through Mrs. Roby to Ferdinand Lopez. Lady Eustace was in the enjoyment of a handsome income, as I hope that some of my readers may remember⁠—and this income, during the last year or two, she had learned to foster, if not with much discretion, at any rate with great zeal. During her short life she had had many aspirations. Love, poetry, sport, religion, fashion, Bohemianism had all been tried; but in each crisis there had been a certain care for wealth which had saved her from the folly of squandering what she