A THRONE-ROOM
Dinner was over at Thornton Chase, and the three were back in the
drawing-room--Olive, Larssen, and Sir Francis. The men smoked at Olive's
request; and she herself lighted one of a special brand of cigarettes
which she had made for her by Antonides.
"I hate to have my drawing-room smelling of afternoon-tea and feminine
chit-chat," she explained. "The two Carleton-Wingate frumps called on me
this afternoon for a couple of solid hours' boring, which they dignify
to themselves as a duty call. Please smoke away the remembrance of
them."
"The Carleton-Wingates are a useful crowd," said Larssen. "There's an
M.P., a major-general and a minister plenipotentiary amongst them."
"Give me those to deal with, and you entertain the twin frumps,"
answered Olive. "Twins are always hateful in a room, because they sit
together and chorus their comments together, just as if they were one
mind with two bodies. You feel as if you ought to split yourself in two
and devote half to each, so as not to cause jealousy. But twin old maids
are especially hateful."
"A very old family," was Letchmere's comment. "They go back to Henry
VII."
"What's the entertainment for to-night?" asked Olive of Larssen.
"I propose to take you to the new Cabaret," said he.
"First-rate!"
"But it doesn't start until ten-thirty. We've plenty of time. First, I
want you to play to me."
Olive went over to the piano, and Larssen followed to light the candles
and turn back the case of polished rosewood inlaid with ivory.
She laid her fingers on the keys and looked up at him expectantly.
"Something lively," he ordered, and she rattled into the latest success
of the musical comedy stage. Such as it was, she played it brilliantly.
To-night she was in that morphia mood of the terrace of Monte Carlo when
she had first told him of her contempt for her husband.
Under cover of the playing, while Sir Francis was reading a novel of
turf life, Olive whispered: "Can't we have a few moments together by
ourselves?"
"I'll arrange it," answered Larssen.
"How?"
"Suppose we drop your father at the Cabaret while we go on to see my
offices?"
"Offices--at night-time!" she exclaimed.
"My staff work all night there--I have a night-shift as well as a
day-shift. In fact, the offices are busier at night-time than in the
day-time."
"Isn't that a very unusual arrangement?"
"Yes. It enables me to deal with routine-work while the other fellow's
asleep. That's always been one of my business principles: get
to-morrow's work done to-day; get a twelve hours' start of the other
man."
"How typical of you!"
"My place is thoroughly worth seeing. Suppose I show you over it?"
Larssen's pride in his office was fully justified. There was nothing in
London, nothing in England to match it as a perfect business machine.
And there was no private office in Europe which could compare in
impressiveness with Larssen's own.
Things went as he arranged, and from the busy hive of industry on the
ground and first floors he took Olive to his private room on the second.
It was a room some thirty yards long and broad in proportion, with a
central dome reaching above the roof. A few broad tables were almost
lost in its immensity. Round the walls were maps dotted with flag-pins
telling of the position of ships. At the further end was Larssen's own
work-table--a horseshoe-shaped desk. Above and behind it hung a portrait
of his little boy by Sargent.
"It's almost a throne-room!" was Olive's exclamation of wonder.
Larssen smiled his pleasure. It _was_ a throne-room. He had designed it
as such. His private house at Hampstead mattered little to him. His
house on Riverside Drive, New York, and his great forest estate in the
Adirondacks mattered almost as little. His real home was at the office.
"In my New York office, and in every one of my other offices round the
world, there's a room like this. I alone use it. When I'm away, it
stands for me. It's my sign."
"Above there," he continued, pointing to the central dome, "is the
wireless apparatus which keeps me in touch with my ships. From ship to
ship and office to office I can send my orders round the world. I'm
independent of the wires and the cables."
"That's epic!" she said, using the word she had used before when he
spoke to her of his early career. No other word fitted Lars Larssen so
closely.
"Heard from Clifford lately?" he queried.
"Only a brief cable from Winnipeg."
"I had a letter telling me things are going well, but not as quickly as
he expected. That letter would be a week old by now. Every moment I'm
expecting to hear that his work is put through and sealed up tight."
"I'm not anxious to have him back. If you only could realize how he
bores me to extinction."
She waited for an expression of sympathy.
"You've borne with it very bravely," he said, knowing that to a woman
like Olive no compliment is dearer than to be called "brave."
"Not that I want to say a word against Clifford," he added quickly.
"He's a very clever man of business, and I admire him for it. But a
woman wants more than cleverness."
"How well you understand!" said Olive. "So few know me as I really am.
If only we had met before----"
She stopped abruptly as a door opened at the farther end of the room.
Morris Sylvester entered briskly with a telegram in his hand. As
confidential secretary, it was his duty to open all telegrams and most
of the letters addressed to his chief. Sylvester passed the open
telegram to Larssen, saying:
"Excuse my interruption. This telegram just arrived seems important. I
thought you would like to see it."
"Thanks." Larssen glanced over it. "No answer necessary."
Sylvester withdrew.
"It's a wire from your gay brother-in-law," said Larssen to Olive.
"From John Rivière! Where is he?"
"In London. He proposes to call on me to-morrow morning at eleven."
"I wonder what he has to say."
"I'm completely in the dark."
"I'd like to meet him."
"Shall I send him on to Roehampton after he's seen me?"
Olive reflected that Rivière might not want to see her, in view of the
way he had avoided her so far. She answered: "Ring me up on the 'phone
when he's in your office. I'll speak to him over the wire."
"Right--I'll remember.... By the way, about the Hudson Bay company, did
I tell you that the underwriting negotiations are going through fine?
Inside a week we ought to be ready for flotation."
Larssen proceeded to enlarge on the subject, and the broken thread of
Olive's avowal was not taken up again. They left the offices, and drove
back to the Cabaret to rejoin Sir Francis.