Once on shore at Southampton he secured telephonic communication with
the baron’s secretary. He was informed that he could be received in
about three hours, which would give his lordship’s solicitors time to
motor down from London.
The appointment being made, he searched out a bookshop and bought the
volume which he had promised to buy. He became so interested that he
read it all the way in the motor, letting the fields of Sussex go
unobserved.
He closed it only when his car turned in to a fine old park where he
caught a glimpse of fallow deer and remembered poor Sempronia. The house
was much older than the title, and had a moat. He stepped from the car
and told his driver to wait. He turned to mount the first flight up the
terrace, and noted a fine figure of a man coming down.
“Why, Captain Mahan!”
“Why, Mr. Brinkerhoff!”
The British swell was only the Chicago lawyer. There was not a better
lawyer or a more expensive one.
“Beautiful old place, captain.”
“Wonderful, Mr. Brinkerhoff. I’m sorry I didn’t come before.”
The lawyer touched his small gray mustache and drew his hand across his
smooth chin.
“The outside view is more pleasing, on the whole, than the inside.”
“Mr. Brinkerhoff, I’m a chemist I ought to be visiting a laboratory at
Manchester this minute. I don’t care to be known as a real estate
agent.” Mr. Brinkerhoff smiled.
“I shall not mention seeing you, and the less you say about meeting me,
the better I shall like it.” They shook hands on it, and each went his
way, the one to report a failure, the other to seek out a hidden lord.
When ushered into a vast and shadowy library, Marvin was briefly greeted
by the secretary, an unsmiling man of forty, who glanced at his
credentials and handed his bulky papers to an older person, evidently a
solicitor. Two others were in the room, but he was presented to none of
them. They gathered around the document he had brought, a long and
complicated deed of sale.
Marvin was conducted upstairs, with a word or two suggesting that he
make no reference to the war.
His lordship, clad in a silken dressing-gown, was seated in a great
easy-chair, with his feet on an ottoman, a Persian shawl over them. He
was a very old man, clean shaven, pale and emaciated, but his
close-clipped white hair was still vigorous. Near him sat his physician,
who arose as the visitor entered.
Marvin was presented. The secretary placed a chair for him and withdrew.
“Your father,” said Lord Fortinbras, “writes me that you know nothing
about business.”
“My father, your lordship, is often right.”
The baron smiled and continued. “You may not be a financier, but I see
from your glove that you know something about war. Sir Clifford here is
curiously anxious that nobody should talk to me about the war.”
Marvin was silent.
“Young man, don’t you call it rather a joke that a man who has spent a
lifetime to advance a navy should live to see his only grandson drowned
when his favorite ship was sunk?”
“No, sir. I don’t call it a joke.”
The old man meditated. “He’s like his father, Sir Clifford. Says what he
thinks. Give him a drink.”
The physician arose, but Marvin spoke.
“No need, Sir Clifford. I’m sufficiently excited by talking to his
lordship. I’ve had a weak heart myself.”
Sir Clifford sat down, and his lordship resumed. “A weak heart, eh?
Suppose you tell me more about yourself.”
“Well, sir, I fall into water whenever I get a chance. My chief fear in
approaching your lordship was that I might fall into your moat while you
were looking out the window, and that you would drop dead from shock.”
His lordship’s thin abdomen shook with amusement.
“Were you ever drowned?”
“I’ve come within an ace of it twice this summer. Once an Indian got me
out, and once the sweetest girl on earth got me out.”
“I should like to hear about that girl.”
Marvin recounted the adventure of the cave.
“Going to marry her?”
“Yes, sir. She says not, but she’s mistaken.”
“What’s her objection?”
“I hate to confess it, but I don’t know.”
His lordship’s sunken eyes grew thoughtful and reminiscent.
“The one who pulled me out wanted cowries. Did you ever read about my
black girl?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“About an hour.”
Again the thin abdomen shook.
“Sir Clifford, the truth is in him. Couldn’t I have a messmate or two
down to meet him?”
Sir Clifford smiled and shook his head.
“Gad, you let those bores below see me, and ten minutes of them is worse
for me than an hour of this rascal.”
Again Sir Clifford smiled and shook his head. “Mahan, this famous
astrologer who is laying down the law to me is only a knight, but he
takes his title like what an old don in my college once chanced to call
a kinquering cong.”
“Bully!” laughed Marvin.
“I like to hear you laugh, lad. You’re a chemist, and I should like to
hear you tell Sir Clifford that all his talk about controlling a heart
by will power is the very sublimation of rot.”
Marvin laughed again. “The will of God, sir, is sometimes pretty
strong.”
“Marvin, does your generation use that term—God?”
“Not often, sir, but when we need it, we need it rather tremendously.”
The old sailor lifted his eyes as if, struggling in the water, he had
caught sight of a green branch floating.
“Marvin, I have loved the sea. I’d give all I have if I could hope for
one glimpse of blue water after this thing in my chest stops beating.
But it won’t be. I’ve faced it. It will be midnight in mid-ocean.”
“My lord, such expressions as midnight don’t mean much. The energy of
radium is not visible, but oppose a bit of dust, and the night is filled
with stars. It may also be filled with love divine, all love excelling.”
“What form of affection is that?”
“The inscrutable form. It let your grandson drown and Henry Moseley
perish at Suvla Bay. God, how I wish I had brains enough to continue
that man’s work!”
Lord Fortinbras looked at him steadily, and then changed the subject.
“How much does your father expect to make?”
“Two million dollars.”
“What’s he offering me?”
“Six hundred thousand.”
“That isn’t much.”
“No, sir, but it’s all he can raise.”
“Lad, you mentioned young Moseley. I used to know his father. If I
thought you had half of Harry Moseley’s brains, I’d consider your
father’s offer. He’s the sort of man to take his profits and build you a
laboratory.”
“I have no such dream, sir,” said Marvin, flushing.
His lordship touched a button, and his secretary appeared.
“Nicholas, I’d rather like to speak to the physical laboratory at my
college.”
The secretary set to work, while the American shivered with
apprehension, feeling certain that Professor Tonnesen knew less than
nothing about him.
“Are you there, Tonnesen? Much the same, thank you.—Ever hear of an
American named Mahan—not the sea dog, but a lad?—Weighed what?—I get it
now, but it sounded like trope.—Those names mean nothing to me. Wait
till I ask him.”
“Tonnesen says you are younger than two chemists named Lewis and
Langmuir.”
“He’s right enough. And those two men have made a tremendous
contribution, but I’m guessing that on a certain point they are wrong.”
Lord Fortinbras resumed the connection.
“He knows ’em, and he thinks they are tremendous but wrong.—No, he
didn’t go west. On the whole, should you think it a waste of money if
his father built him a laboratory?—Thank you. Sorry to have interrupted
your calculations.”
His lordship put the instrument back on the table, and fixed his eyes on
Marvin.
“Considering what Tonnesen has said to me, and considering that girl of
yours, and considering the fact that I’ve had a million pounds from the
pine on that four hundred and thirty-eight thousand acres. I’m going to
accept your father’s offer.”
“My lord, we are distinctly grateful, but your shares represent six
thousand acres more than your estimate.”
A door opened noiselessly, and the secretary laid a small sheet of paper
before his employer.
“Thank you, Nicholas. Ask them to come up.”
The shrewd sunken eyes scanned the paper until the lawyers appeared.
“Gentlemen, do you seriously demand a matter of sixty thousand pounds
for six thousand acres of cut-over land?”
“There may be minerals in it.”
“Quite so, but there are a dozen mines in the tract already. Give me the
document and hand me a pen.”
There was appreciable silence while that famous _Fortinbras_ was firmly
set down.
“If now you gentlemen will be good enough to witness it and seal it, I
will hand it to the younger Mr. Mahan, and you can take the duplicate up
to town. I’m sorry not to join you at luncheon, but Sir Clifford refuses
to let me climb stairs, and allows me only—how much today?”
“Fortinbras, you have behaved so well that in a few minutes I shall let
you have three ounces of clear soup, three of sole, seven of underdone
roast, and a taste of salad.”
“What, no wine!”
“You’ve been having wine for half an hour—in the form of conversation
with youth. But as for the physical stuff, you’ve had no liquid with
your luncheon for the past three months.”
“Clifford, has a sea-dog got to live forever?”
“Well, then, six ounces of Hochheimer.”
“Hock, the worst of German drinks! Nicholas, ask the nurse to double the
portions for Captain Mahan, and send him up a bottle of port.”