There was silence. Then she spoke again-- "You will lose. You always do lose!" "Thanks." "It will be almost better for you that you should lose. I am beginning to believe, Cyril, that you never will do any good till you have touched bottom, till you have lost all that you possibly can lose." "Thank you, again." She drew herself up, drawing herself away from the railing against which she had been leaning. She gave a gesture which was suggestive of weariness. "I too am tired. This uncertainty is more than I can stand; you are so unstable, Cyril. Your ideas and mine on some points are wide apart. It seems to me that if a girl is worth winning, she is worth working for. As a profession for a man, I don't think that what you call 'punting' on the Stock Exchange is much better than pitch-and-toss." "Well?" The word was an interrogation. She had paused. "It appears to me that the girl who marries a man who does nothing else but 'punt' is preparing for herself a long line of disappointments. Think how many times you have disappointed me. Think of the fortunes you were to have made. Think, Cyril, of the Trumpit Gold Mine--what great things were to come of that!" "I am quite aware that I did invest every penny I could beg, borrow, or steal in the Trumpit Gold Mine, and that at present I am the fortunate possessor of a trunkful of shares which are not worth a shilling a-piece. The reminder is a pleasant one. Proceed--you seem wound up to go." Her voice assumed a new touch of sharpness. "The long and the short of it is, Cyril--it is better that we should understand each other!--if your present speculation turns out as disastrously as all your others have done, and it leaves you worse off than ever, the relations, such as they are, which exist between us must cease. We must be as strangers!" "Which means that you don't care for me the value of a brass-headed pin." "It means nothing of the kind, as you are well aware. It simply means that I decline to link my life with a man who appears incapable
Prev.
Back
Top