A Woman Intervenes Part 11

'Why, Mr. Wentworth, what is the matter with you this morning? You look as if you had seen a ghost.'

Wentworth glanced at the young woman seated in the chair, who was gazing up brightly at him.

'Well,' he said at last, 'I am not sure but I _have_ seen a ghost. May I sit down beside you?'

'May you? Why, of course you may. I shall be delighted to have you. Is there anything wrong?'

'I don't know. Yes, I think there is.'

'Well, tell it to me; perhaps I can help you. A woman's wit, you know.

What is the trouble?'

'May I ask you a few questions, Miss Brewster?'

'Certainly. A thousand of them, if you like, and I will answer them all if I can.'

'Thank you. Will you tell me, Miss Brewster, if you are connected with any newspaper?'

Miss Brewster laughed her merry, silvery little laugh.

'Who told you? Ah! I see how it is. It was that creature Fleming. I'll get even with him for this some day. I know what office he is after, and the next time he wants a good notice from the _Argus_ he'll get it; see if he don't. I know some things about him that he would just as soon not see in print. Why, what a fool the man is! I suppose he told you out of revenge because I wouldn't speak to him the other evening. Never mind; I can afford to wait.'

'Then--then, Miss Brewster, it _is_ true?'

'Certainly it is true; is there anything wrong about it? I hope you don't think it is disreputable to belong to a good newspaper?'

'To a good newspaper, no; to a bad newspaper, yes.'

'Oh, I don't think the _Argus_ is a bad newspaper. It pays me well.'

'Then it is to the _Argus_ that you belong?'

'Certainly.'

'May I ask, Miss Brewster, if there is anything I have spoken about to you that you intend to use in your paper?'

Again Miss Brewster laughed.

'I will be perfectly frank with you. I never tell a lie--it doesn't pay.

Yes. The reason I am here is because _you_ are here. I am here to find out what your report on those mines will be, also what the report of your friend will be. I have found out.'

'And do you intend to use the information you have thus obtained--if I may say it--under false pretences?'

'My dear sir, you are forgetting yourself. You must remember that you are talking to a lady.'

'A lady!' cried Wentworth in his anguish.

'Yes, sir, a lady; and you must be careful how you talk to _this_ lady.

There was no false pretence about it, if you remember. What you told me was in conversation; I didn't ask you for it. I didn't even make the first advances towards your acquaintance.'

'But you must admit, Miss Brewster, that it is very unfair to get a man to engage in what he thinks is a private conversation, and then to publish what he has said.'

'My dear sir, if that were the case, how would we get anything for publication that people didn't want to be known? Why, I remember once, when the Secretary of State----'

'Yes,' interrupted Wentworth wearily; 'Fleming told me that story.'

'Oh, did he? Well, I'm sure I'm much obliged to him. Then I need not repeat it.'

'Do you mean to say that you intend to send to the _Argus_ for publication what I have told you in confidence?'

'Certainly. As I said before, that is what I am here for. Besides, there was no "in confidence" about it.'

'And yet you pretend to be a truthful, honest, honourable woman?'

'I don't _pretend_ it; I am.'

'How much truth, then, is there in your story that you are a millionaire's daughter about to visit your father in Paris, and accompany him from there to the Riviera?'

Miss Brewster laughed brightly.

'Oh, I don't call fibs, which a person has to tell in the way of business, untruths.'

'Then probably you do not think your estimable colleague, Mr. J.K.

Rivers, behaved dishonourably in Ottawa?'

'Well, hardly. I think Rivers was not justified in what he did because he was unsuccessful, that is all. I'll bet a dollar if I had got hold of these papers they would have gone through to New York; but, then, J.K.

Rivers is only a stupid man, and most men _are_ stupid'--with a sly glance at Wentworth.

'I am willing to admit that, Miss Brewster, if you mean me. There never was a more stupid man than I have been.'

'My dear Mr. Wentworth, it will do you ever so much good if you come to a realization of that fact. The truth is, you take yourself much too seriously. Now, it won't hurt you a bit to have what I am going to send published in the _Argus_, and it will help me a great deal. Just you wait here for a few moments.'

With that she flung her book upon his lap, sprang up, and vanished down the companion-way. In a very short time she reappeared with some sheets of paper in her hand.

'Now you see how fair and honest I am going to be. I am going to read you what I have written. If there is anything in it that is not true, I will very gladly cut it out; and if there is anything more to be added, I shall be very glad to add it. Isn't that fair?'

Wentworth was so confounded with the woman's impudence that he could make no reply.

She began to read: '"By an unexampled stroke of enterprise the _New York Argus_ is enabled this morning to lay before its readers a full and exclusive account of the report made by the two English specialists, Mr.

George Wentworth and Mr. John Kenyon, who were sent over by the London Syndicate to examine into the accounts, and inquire into the true value of the mines of the Ottawa River."'

She looked up from the paper, and said, with an air of friendly confidence:

'I shouldn't send that if I thought the people at the New York end would know enough to write it themselves; but as the paper is edited by dull men, and not by a sharp woman, I have to make them pay twenty-five cents a word for puffing their own enterprise. Well, to go on: "When it is remembered that the action of the London Syndicate will depend entirely on the report of these two gentlemen--"'

'I wouldn't put it that way,' interrupted Wentworth in his despair. 'I would use the word "largely" for "entirely."'

'Oh, _thank_ you,' said Miss Brewster cordially. She placed the ma.n.u.script on her knee, and, with her pencil, marked out the word 'entirely,' subst.i.tuting 'largely.' The reading went on: '"When it is remembered that the action of the London Syndicate will depend _largely_ on the report of these two gentlemen, the enterprise of the _Argus_ in getting this exclusive information, which will be immediately cabled to London, may be imagined." That is the preliminary, you see; and, as I said, it wouldn't be necessary to cable it if women were at the head of affairs over there, which they are not. "Mr. John Kenyon, the mining expert, has visited all the mineral ranges along the Ottawa River, and his report is that the mines are very much what is claimed for them; but he thinks they are not worked properly, although, with judicious management and more careful mining, the properties can be made to pay good dividends. Mr. George Wentworth, who is one of the leading accountants of London--"'