I will tell him."

Upon that Mr. Wharton did speak to his son-in-law;--coming upon him
suddenly one morning in the dining-room. "Emily will want an outfit
if she is to go to this place."

"Like other people she wants many things that she cannot get."

"I will tell my tradesmen to furnish her with what she wants, up
to,--well,--suppose I say L200. I have spoken to her and she wants
your sanction."

"My sanction for spending your money? She can have that very
quickly."

"You can tell her so;--or I will do so."

Upon that Mr. Wharton was going, but Lopez stopped him. It was now
essential that the money for the shares in the San Juan mine should
be paid up, and his father-in-law's pocket was still the source from
which the enterprising son-in-law hoped to procure it. Lopez had
fully made up his mind to demand it, and thought that the time had
now come. And he was resolved that he would not ask it as a favour on
bended knee. He was beginning to feel his own power, and trusted that
he might prevail by other means than begging. "Mr. Wharton," he said,
"you and I have not been very good friends lately."

"No, indeed."

"There was a time,--a very short time,--during which I thought that
we might hit it off together, and I did my best. You do not, I fancy,
like men of my class."

"Well;--well! You had better go on if there be anything to say."

"I have much to say, and I will go on. You are a rich man, and I am
your son-in-law." Mr. Wharton put his left hand up to his forehead,
brushing the few hairs back from his head, but he said nothing. "Had
I received from you during the last most vital year that assistance
which I think I had a right to expect, I also might have been a rich
man now. It is no good going back to that." Then he paused, but still
Mr. Wharton said nothing. "Now you know what has come to me and to
your daughter. We are to be expatriated."

"Is that my fault?"

"I think it is, but I mean to say nothing further of that. This
Company which is sending me out, and which will probably be the most
thriving thing of the kind which has come up within these twenty
years, is to pay me a salary of L1000 a year as resident manager at
San Juan."

"So I understand."

"The salary alone would be a beggarly thing. Guatemala, I take it, is
not the cheapest country in the world in which a man can live. But I
am to go out as the owner of fifty shares on which L100 each must be
paid up, and I am entitled to draw a