“I can manage it,” he said, in reply to a look from Montague, “but I shall have to get along at once.” At a quarter past three that afternoon, Jacob wrote his cheque for twenty thousand pounds, received a signed copy of the agreement with Messrs. Littleham and Montague, and sat by himself, whistling softly and listening to their retreating footsteps. Dauncey came in, a few moments later, with a perplexed frown upon his forehead. “Please may I look through the agreement?” he begged. [Pg 71] [Pg 71] Jacob passed it over to him. He read it through slowly and carefully. “Anything troubling you?” Jacob asked. “I don’t know what it is,” Dauncey confessed. “The agreement seems all right, but I saw their faces when I let ’em out. I can’t see the flaw, Jacob, but it’s not an honest deal. They’ve got something up their sleeve.” Jacob smiled. “Perhaps you’re right, Dick,” he answered. “Anyway, lock the agreement up in the safe and don’t worry.” [Pg 72] [Pg 72] CHAPTER VII Jacob found life, for the next few months, an easy and a pleasant thing. He took a prolonged summer holiday and made many acquaintances at a fashionable French watering place, where he devoted more time to golf than gambling, but made something of a reputation at both pursuits. He came back to London bronzed and in excellent health, but always with a curious sense of something wanting in his life, an emptiness of purpose, which he could never altogether shake off. He was a liberal patron of the theatres, but he had no inclinations towards theatrical society, or the easy Bohemian circles amongst which he would have been such a welcome disciple. He was brought into contact with a certain number of wealthy men in the city, who occasionally asked him to their homes, but here again he was conscious of disappointment. He enjoyed wine, cigars and good food, but he required with them the leaven of good company and good fellowship, which somehow or other seemed to evade him. Dauncey remained his chief and most acceptable companion, a rejuvenated Dauncey, who had [Pg 73]developed a dry fund of humour, a brightness of eye and speech wholly transforming. There were many others who offered him friendship, but Jacob’s
Prev.
Back
Top