injured him, to adjure him to forgive the wrong, or at least
not to visit it upon her Charley's innocent head. But she shrank with an
inexplicable terror from putting this design into effect; she felt she
should humiliate herself to no purpose; he would deny, in his cold,
cynical way, that he entertained any thing but friendship for her astute
husband and affection for her bright and impulsive son. Besides, to say
truth, she was afraid to speak with the man; and she had a suspicion
that this weird and shadowy fear was in some degree shared by Mrs.
Basil; at times she even imagined that it was not so much indisposition
as a desire to avoid his presence that caused the landlady to absent
herself from the family circle.

Mr. Coe, at all events, entertained no such prejudice against his guest;
day by day he grew more communicative with him, and more solicitous to
hear his opinions, with which he seldom failed to agree. The two men
were in reality, as it was easy to see, as opposite in character as the
poles. Mr. Balfour was, and apparently always had been, a man of
pleasure; but he had seen men and cities, and his remarks were shrewd,
and selfish, and worldly-wise enough. It was rarely that his talk ever
strayed to matters of business, so that Solomon was perforce a listener;
but that unambitious part he played to admiration.

Upon one occasion, however, their after-dinner converse happened to turn
upon partnerships; Solomon urged their great convenience, how one man
brought money and the other brains, and how pleasant it must be for the
former to live at ease while the latter gathered honey for him, both for
present use and for the wintry store. He rose with the familiar subject
to quite a flight of poetry.

Mr. Balfour, with half-shut eves and a mocking smile, dilated upon the
sentiment involved in such communities of enterprise, the sympathy
engendered by them, and the happy social effects that were produced by
them. His host either did not, or would not, perceive that these remarks
were ironical, and pursued the subject to its details, proportions of
profits, balance-sheets, etc., until Charles rose with a yawn, and left
his two elders together.

"Well, Balfour," said Solomon, frankly, as soon as they were alone,
"this talk reminds me of the matter that first introduced us to one
another--your purchase of that outlying bit of the Crompton property,
Wheal Danes."

[Illustration: "I WILL GIVE YOU A THOUSAND POUNDS F