Roden's Corner Part 11

he answered. "Miss Roden is barely aware of my existence, and would not know me from Adam."

Nevertheless he stayed, moving about the room for some minutes looking at the flowers and the pictures, of which he knew just as much as was desirable and fashionable. He knew what flowers were "in," such as fuchsias and tulips, and what were "out," such as camellias and double hyacinths. About the pictures he knew a little, and asked questions as to some upon the walls that belonged to the Dutch school. He was of the universe, universal. Then he sat down again un.o.btrusively, and Mrs.

Vansittart did not seem to notice that he had done so, though she glanced at the clock.

A few minutes later Dorothy came in. She changed colour when Mrs.

Vansittart half introduced Cornish with the conventional, "I think you know each other."

"I knew you were coming to The Hague," she said, shaking hands with Cornish. "I had a letter from Joan the other day. They all are coming, are they not? I am afraid Joan will be very much disappointed in me.

She thinks I am wrapped up heart and soul in the malgamiters--and I am not, you know."

She turned with a little laugh, and appealed to Mrs. Vansittart, who was watching her closely, as if Dorothy were displaying some quality or point hitherto unknown to the older woman. The girl's eyes were certainly brighter than usual.

"Joan takes some things very seriously," answered Cornish.

"We all do that," said Mrs. Vansittart, without looking up from the tea-table at which she was engaged. "Yes; it is a mistake, of course."

"Possibly," a.s.sented Mrs. Vansittart. "Do you take sugar, Miss Roden?"

"Yes, please--seriously. Two pieces."

"Are you like Joan?" asked Cornish, as he gave her the cup. "Do you take anything else seriously?"

"Oh no," answered Dorothy Roden, with a laugh.

"And your brother?" inquired Mrs. Vansittart. "Is he coming this afternoon?"

"He will follow me. He is busy with the new malgamiters who arrived this morning. I suppose you brought them, Mr. Cornish?"

"Yes, I brought them. Twenty-four of them--the dregs, so to speak. The very last of the malgamiters, collected from all parts of the world. I was not proud of them."

He sat down and quickly changed the conversation, showing quite clearly that this subject interested him as little as it interested his companions. He brought the latest news from London, which the ladies were glad enough to hear. For to Dorothy Roden, at least, The Hague was a place of exile, where men lived different lives and women thought different thoughts. Are there not a hundred little rivulets of news which never flow through the journals, but are pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, and seem shallow enough, but which, uniting at last, form a great stream of public opinion, and this, having formed itself imperceptibly, is suddenly found in full flow, and is so obvious that the newspapers forget to mention it? Thus colonists and other exiles returning to England, and priding themselves upon having kept in touch with the progress of events and ideas in the old country, find that their thoughts have all the while been running in the wrong channels--that seemingly great events have been considered very small, that small ideas have been lifted high by the babbling crowd which is vaguely called society.

From Tony Cornish, Mrs. Vansittart and Dorothy learnt that among other social playthings charity was for the moment being laid aside. We have inherited, it appears, a great box of playthings, and the careful student of history will find that none of the toys are new--that they have indeed been played with by our forefathers, who did just as we do.

They took each toy from the box, and cried aloud that it was new, that the world had never seen its like before. Had it not, indeed? Then presently the toy--be it charity, or a new religion, or sentiment, or greed of gain, or war--is thrown back into the box again, where it lies until we of a later day drag it forth with the same cry that it is new.

We grow wild with excitement over South African mines, and never recognize the old South Sea bubble trimmed anew to suit the taste of the day. We crow with delight over our East End slums, and never recognize the patched-up remnants of the last Crusade that fizzled out so ignominiously at Acre five hundred years ago.

So Tony Cornish, who was _dans le movement_ gently intimated to his hearers that what may be called a robuster tone ruled the spirit of the age. Charity was going down, athletics were coming up. Another Olympiad had pa.s.sed away. Wise indeed was Solon, who allowed four years for men to soften and to harden again. During the Olympiads it is to be presumed that men busied themselves with the slums that existed in those days, hearkened to the decadent poetry or fiction of that time, and then, as the robuster period of the games came round, braced themselves once more to the consideration of braver things.

It appeared, therefore, that the Malgamite scheme was already a thing of the past so far as social London was concerned. A sensational 'Varsity boat-race had given charity its _coup de grace_, had ushered in the spring, when even the poor must shift for themselves.

"And in the mean time," commented Mrs. Vansittart, "here are four hundred industrials landed, if one may so put it, at The Hague."

"Yes; but that will be all right," retorted Cornish, with his gay laugh. "They only wanted a start. They have got their start. What more can they desire? Is not Lord Ferriby himself coming across? He is at the moment on board the Flushing boat. And he is making a great sacrifice, for he must be aware that he does not look nearly so impressive on the Continent as he does, say in Piccadilly, where the policemen know him, and even the newspaper boys are dimly aware that this is no ordinary man to whom one may offer a halfpenny Radical paper----"

Cornish broke off, and looked towards the door, which was at this moment thrown open by a servant, who announced--"Herr Roden. Herr von Holzen."

The two men came forward together, Roden slouching and heavy-shouldered, but well dressed; Von Holzen smaller, compacter, with a thoughtful, still face and calculating eyes. Roden introduced his companion to the two ladies. It is possible that a certain reluctance in his manner indicated the fact that he had brought Von Holzen against his own desire. Either Von Holzen had asked to be brought or Mrs.

Vansittart had intimated to Roden that she would welcome his a.s.sociate, but this was not touched upon in the course of the introduction.

Cornish looked gravely on. Von Holzen was betrayed into a momentary gaucheness, as if he were not quite at home in a drawing-room.

Roden drew forward a chair, and seated himself near to Mrs. Vansittart with an air of familiarity which the lady seemed rather to invite than to resent. They had, it appeared, many topics in common. Roden had come with the purpose of seeing Mrs. Vansittart, and no one else. Her manner, also, changed as soon as Roden entered the room, and seemed to appeal with a sort of deference to his judgment of all that she said or did. It was a subtle change, and perhaps no one noticed it, though Dorothy, who was exchanging conventional remarks with Von Holzen, glanced across the room once.

"Ah," Von Holzen was saying in his grave way, with his head bent a little forward, as if the rounded brow were heavy--"ah, but I am only the chemist, Miss Roden. It is your brother who has placed us on our wonderful financial basis. He has a head for finance, your brother, and is quick in his calculations. He understands money, whereas I am only a scientist."

He spoke English correctly but slowly, with the Dutch accent, which is slighter and less guttural than the German. Dorothy was interested in him, and continued to talk with him, leaving Cornish standing at a little distance, teacup in hand. Von Holzen was in strong contrast to the two Englishmen. He was graver, more thoughtful, a man of deeper purpose and more solid intellect. There was something dimly Napoleonic in the direct and calculating glance of his eyes, as if he never looked idly at anything or any man. It was he who made a movement after the lapse of a few moments only, as if, having recovered his slight embarra.s.sment, he did not intend to stay longer than the merest etiquette might demand. He crossed the room, and stood before Mrs.

Vansittart, with his heels clapped well together, making the most formal conversation, which was only varied by a stiff bow.

"I have a friendly recollection," he said, preparing to take his leave, "of a Charles Vansittart, a student at Leyden, with whom I was brought into contact again in later life. He was, I believe, from Amsterdam, of an English mother."

"Ah!" replied Mrs. Vansittart. "Mine is a common name."

And they bowed to each other in the foreign way.

CHAPTER X

DEEPER WATER.

"Une bonne intention est une ech.e.l.le trop courte."

"I have had considerable experience in such matters, and I think I may say that the new financial scheme worked out by Mr. Roden and myself is a sound one," Lord Ferriby was saying in his best manner.

He was addressing Major White, Tony Cornish, Von Holzen, and Percy Roden, convened to a meeting in the private _salon_ occupied by the Ferribys at the Hotel of the Old Shooting Gallery, at The Hague.

The _salon_ in question was at the front of the house on the first floor, and therefore looked out upon the Toornoifeld, where the trees were beginning to show a tender green, under the encouragement of a treacherous April sun. Major White, seated bolt upright in his chair, looked with a gentle surprise out of the window. He had so small an opinion of his understanding that he usually begged explanatory persons to excuse him. "No doubt you're quite right, but it's no use trying to explain it to _me_, don't you know," he was in the habit of saying, and his att.i.tude said no less at the present moment.

Von Holzen, with his chin in the palm of his hand, watched Lord Ferriby's face with a greater attention than that transparent physiognomy required. Roden's attention was fully occupied by the papers on the table in front of him. He was seated by Lord Ferriby's side, ready to prompt or a.s.sist, as behoved a merely mechanical subordinate. Lord Ferriby, dimly conscious of this mental att.i.tude, had spoken Roden's name with considerable patronage, and with the evident desire to give every man his due. Cornish, in his quick and superficial way, glanced from one face to the other, taking in _en pa.s.sant_ any object in the room that happened to call for a momentary attention. He noted the pa.s.sive and somewhat bovine surprise on White's face, and wondered whether it owed its presence thereto astonishment at finding himself taking part in a committee meeting or amazement at the suggestion that Lord Ferriby should be capable of evolving any scheme, financial or otherwise, out of his own brain. The committee thus summoned was a fair sample of its kind. Here were a number of men dividing a sense of responsibility among them so impartially that there was not nearly enough of it to go round. In a mult.i.tude of councilors there may be safety, but it is a.s.suredly the councillors only who are safe.

"The reasons," continued Lord Ferriby, "why it is inexpedient to continue in our present position as mere trustees of a charitable fund are too numerous to go into at the present moment. Suffice it to say that there are many such reasons, and that I have satisfied myself of their soundness. Our chief desire is to ameliorate the condition of the malgamite workers. It must a.s.suredly suggest itself to any one of us that the best method of doing this is to make the malgamite workers an independent corporation, bound together by the greatest of ties, a common interest."

The speaker paused, and turned to Roden with a triumphant smile, as much as to say, "There, beat that if you can."

Roden could not beat it, so he nodded thoughtfully, and examined the point of his pen.

"Gentlemen," said Lord Ferriby, impressively, "the greatest common interest is a common purse."

As the meeting was too small for applause, Lord Ferriby only allowed sufficient time for this great truth to be a.s.similated, and then continued--"It is proposed, therefore, that we turn the Malgamite Works into a company, the most numerous shareholders to be the malgamiters themselves. The most numerous shareholders, mark you--not the heaviest shareholders. These shall be ourselves. We propose to estimate the capital of the company at ten thousand pounds, which, as you know, is, approximately speaking, the amount raised by our appeals on behalf of this great charity. We shall divide this capital into two thousand five-pound shares, allot one share to each malgamite worker--say five hundred shares--and retain the rest--say fifteen hundred shares--ourselves. Of those fifteen hundred, it is proposed to allot three hundred to each of us. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," answered Major White, optimistically polishing his eye-gla.s.s with a pocket-handkerchief. "Any a.s.s could understand that."

"Our friend Mr. Roden," continued his lordship, "who, I mention in pa.s.sing, is one of the finest financiers with whom I have ever had relationship, is of opinion that this company, having its works in Holland, should not be registered as a limited company in England. The reasons for holding such an opinion are, briefly, connected with the interference of the English law in the management of a limited liability company formed for the sole purpose of making money.

We are not disposed to cla.s.sify ourselves as such a company. We are not disposed to pay the English income tax on money which is intended for distribution in charity. Each malgamite worker, with his one share, is not, precisely speaking, so much a shareholder as a partic.i.p.ator in profits. We are not in any sense a limited liability company."