Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/554

 But the courier protested. "No, no! He will want nothing. It will be that he has heard of Mr. Tinker since he has come here, and he feels he would like to speak with him and maybe especially"—Le Seyeux paused, coughed explosively, then completed his thought—"and maybe especially he wish to look at him!"

Mrs. Tinker shook her head. "No; I know he wants something. They always do."

With Olivia's light and gentle hand upon his arm, her betrothed leaned forward to watch the glittering car and its gorgeous outriders as they passed on down the street in a thin cloud of dust of their own creation. Tinker's whole course across Barbary had been like this, a jocose kind of pageantry, Laurence thought. And, in the end, what was the man? "Barbarian," "Carthaginian," "Goth," he had been called; but with qualifications: a barbarian, but a great one; a Carthaginian, but a great one;—a Goth, the little old English lady had just said; but she called him a magnificent one.

"Wave to him, Mother!" Olivia cried. "Look at him! He's still showing off for us—to make us laugh. Wave to him, Mother!"

As she said, Tinker was still standing up in the car,