"Besides, I don't care if they do.
All my worry is that I can't come to you oftener. Every time I leave
you I count up the hours that must pass before I see you again. But I
expect most, if not all, of the visitors will be off presently. Most of
'em have been there the regulation fortnight; a good many come
backwards and forwards; they're the city men, the money men. My father
is closeted with them for hours every day--that big scheme of his seems
to be coming off satisfactorily. It's a railway to some place in
Africa, and all these fellows--the Griffenbergs, and Beltons, that fat
German baron, Wirsch, and the rest of them, are in it. Heaven knows why
my father wants to worry about it for. I heard one of them say that he
calculated to make a million and a half out of it. As if he weren't
rich enough!"
"A million and a half," she said. "What a large sum it seems. What one
could do with a half, a quarter, a tenth of it!"
"What would you do, dearest?" he asked.
She laughed softly.
"I think that I would first buy you a present. And then I'd have the
Hall repainted. No, I'd get the terrace rails and the portico mended;
and yet, perhaps, it would be better to have the inside of the house
painted and papered.
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