'You have travelled a great deal, Miss Longworth. I envy you.'
'I often think I am a person to be envied, but there may come a shipwreck one day, and then I shall not be in so enviable a position.'
'I sincerely hope you may never have such an experience.'
'Have you ever been shipwrecked, Mr. Kenyon?'
'Oh no; my travelling experiences are very limited. But to read of a shipwreck is bad enough.'
'We have had a most delightful voyage so far. Quite like summer. One can scarcely believe that we left America in the depth of winter, with snow everywhere and the thermometer ever so far below zero. Have you mended your deck-chair yet, sufficiently well to trust yourself upon it again?'
'Oh!' said Kenyon, with a laugh, 'you really must not make fun of my amateur carpentering like that. As I told you, I am a mining engineer, and if I cannot mend a deck-chair, what would you expect me to do with a mine?'
'Have you had much to do with mines?' asked the young woman.
'I am just beginning,' replied Kenyon; 'this, in fact, is one of my first commissions. I have been sent with my friend Wentworth to examine certain mines on the Ottawa River.'
'The Ottawa River!' cried Edith. 'Are you one of those who were sent out by the London Syndicate?'
'Yes,' answered Kenyon with astonishment. 'What do you know about it?'
'Oh, I know everything about it. Everything, except what the mining expert's report is to be, and that information, I suppose, you have; so, between the two of us, we know a great deal about the fortunes of the London Syndicate.'
'Really! I am astonished to meet a young lady who knows anything about the matter. I understood it was rather a secret combination up to the present.'
'Ah! but, you see, I am one of the syndicate.'
'You!'
'Certainly,' answered Edith Longworth, laughing. 'At least, my father is, and that is the same thing, or almost the same thing. We intended to go to Canada ourselves, and I was very much disappointed at not going. I understand that the sleighing, and the snowshoeing, and the tobogganing are something wonderful.'
'I saw very little of the social side of life in the district, my whole time being employed at the mines; but even in the mining village where we stayed, they had a snowshoe club, and a very good toboggan slide—so good, in fact, that, having gone down once, I never ventured to risk my life on it again.'
'If my father knew you were on board, he would be anxious to meet you. Doubtless you know the London Syndicate will be a very large company.'
'Yes, I am aware of that.'
'And you know that a great deal is going to depend upon your report?'
'I suppose that is so, and I hope the syndicate will find my report at least an honest and thorough one.'
'Is the colleague who was with you also on board?'
'Yes, he is here.'
'He, then, was the accountant who was sent out?'
'Yes, and he is a man who does his business very thoroughly, and I think the syndicate will be satisfied with his work.'
'And do you not think they will be satisfied with yours also? I am sure you did your work conscientiously.'
Kenyon almost blushed as the young woman made this remark, but she looked intently at him, and he saw that her thoughts were not on him, but on the large interests he represented.
'Were you favourably impressed with the Ottawa as a mining region?' she asked.
'Very much so,' he answered, and, anxious to turn the conversation away from his own report, he said: 'I was so much impressed with it that I secured the option of a mine there for myself.'
'Oh! do you intend to buy one of the mines there?'
Kenyon laughed.
'No, I am no capitalist seeking investment for my money, but I saw that the mine contained possibilities of producing a great deal of money for those who possess it. It is very much more valuable, in my opinion, than the owners themselves suspect; so I secured an option upon it for three months, and hope when I reach England to form a company to take it up.'
'Well, I am sure,' said the young lady, 'if you are confident that the mine is a good one, you could see no one who would help you more in that way than my father. He has been looking at a brewery business he thought of investing in, but which he has concluded to have nothing to do with, so he will be anxious to find something reliable in its place. How much would be required for the purchase of the mine you mention?'
'I was thinking of asking fifty thousand pounds for it,' said Kenyon, flushing, as he thought of his own temerity in more than doubling the price of the mine.
Wentworth and he had estimated the probable value of the mine, and had concluded that even selling it at that price—which would give them thirty thousand pounds to divide between them—they were selling a mine that was really worth very much more, and would soon pay tremendous dividends on the fifty thousand pounds. He expected the young woman to be impressed by the amount, and was, therefore, very much surprised when she said:
'Fifty thousand pounds! Is that all? Then I am afraid my father would have nothing to do with it. He only deals with large businesses, and a company with a capitalization of fifty thousand pounds I am sure he would not look at.'
'You talk of fifty thousand pounds,' said Kenyon, 'as if it were a mere trifle. To me it seems an immense fortune. I only wish I had it, or half of it.'
'You are not rich, then?' said the girl, with apparent interest.
'No,' replied the young man. 'Far otherwise.'
At that moment the elder Mr. Longworth appeared in the door of the companion-way, and looked up and down the deck.
'Oh, here you are,' he said, as his daughter sprang from her chair.
'Father,' she cried, 'let me introduce to you Mr. Kenyon, who is the mining expert sent out by our syndicate to look at the Ottawa mines.'
'I am pleased to meet you,' said the elder gentleman.
The capitalist sat down beside the mining engineer, and began, somewhat to Kenyon's embarrassment, to talk of the London Syndicate.
CHAPTER VI.
A few mornings later Wentworth worked his way, with much balancing and grasping of stanchions, along the deck, for the ship rolled fearfully, but the person he sought was nowhere visible. He thought he would go into the smoking-room, but changed his mind at the door, and turned down the companion-way to the main saloon. The tables had been cleared of the breakfast belongings, but on one of the small tables a white cloth had been laid, and at this spot of purity in the general desert of red plush sat Miss Brewster, who was complacently ordering what she wanted from a steward, who did not seem at all pleased in serving one who had disregarded the breakfast-hour, to the disarrangement of all saloon rules. The chief steward stood by a door and looked disapprovingly at the tardy guest. It was almost time to lay the tables for lunch, and the young woman was as calmly ordering her breakfast as if she had been the first person at table.
She looked up brightly at Wentworth, and smiled as he approached her.
'I suppose,' she began, 'I'm dreadfully late, and the steward looks as if he would like to scold me. How awfully the ship is rolling! Is there a storm?'