Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/67

 quick and pregnant change, "see here; d'you want to make ten times what you get out of this key-operating business? D'you want to make a good round sum, helping me out of a hole?"

The Laminian's operator looked closely at the man who had invaded his cabin. He had apparently been afraid of some such undercurrent of self-interest in the other's advances. He seemed to possess the man of thought's persistent horror of material and entangling alliances; he seemed to feel that some secret web of inveiglement had been woven about him.

"How could I help you out of a hole?" he curtly demanded.

The stranger did not answer at once. The other's suddenly aroused suspicion had warned him to go slow. Instead of speaking he leaned back in the steamer-chair and studied his companion. The path before him seemed a precarious one. His pursed-up lips worked slowly in and out as he sat there temporising. There was something suggestive of the ruminant in his large and heavy silence.

"Could we talk here—us two, man to man?" he finally asked, with a look at the door.

"Of course we can," the operator retorted, nettled by the sense of mystery the other was conjuring up about so simple a situation. This