s on
herself. Moreover he had no doubt of keeping her; his primitiveness
appears again; with the first kiss he seemed to pass from slave to
master. Many girls would have taught him better. Janie was not one. She
seemed rather to acquiesce, being, it must be presumed, also of a
somewhat primitive cast of mind. It was terribly clear to Iver that the
pair would stand to one another and settle down in inglorious
contentment together for their lives. Yes, it was worse than Duplay;
something might have been made of him. As for Harry--Iver used to end by
thinking how sensible a man old Mr Neeld was; for Mr Neeld had
determined to hold his tongue.

There was another vexation, of a different kind indeed, but also a check
in his success. Blinkhampton was not going quite right. Blinkhampton was
a predestined seaside resort on the South Coast, and Iver, with certain
associates, meant to develop it. They had bought it up, and laid it out
for building, and arranged for a big hotel with Birch & Company, the
famous furnishers. But all along in front of it--between where the
street now was and the esplanade was soon to be--ran a long narrow
strip, forming the estate of an elderly gentleman named Masters. Of
course Masters had to be bought out, the whole scheme hanging on that.
Iver, keen at a bargain, hard in business hours (had not Mina Zabriska
discovered that?), confident that nobody would care to incur his
enmity--he was powerful--by forestalling him, had refused Masters his
price; the old gentleman would have to come down. But some young men
stepped in, with the rashness of their youth, and acquired an option of
purchase from Masters. Iver smiled in a vexed fashion, but was not
dismayed. He let it be known that anybody who advanced money to the
young men--Sloyd, Sloyd, and Gurney was the firm--would be his enemies;
then he waited for the young men to approach him. They did not come. At
last, pride protesting, prudence insisting, he wrote and suggested that
they might probably be glad to make an arrangement with him. Mr
Sloyd--our Mr Sloyd--wrote back that they had found a capitalist--no
less than that--and proposed to develop their estate themselves, to put
up their own hotel, also a row of boarding-houses, a club, a winter
garden, and possibly an aquarium. Youth and a sense of elation caused
Sloyd to add that they would always be glad to cooperate with other
gentlemen interested in Blinkhampton.

Iver had many irons in the fire;