He maintained
his serenity, and calmly calculated pounds and shillings with all the
methodic coolness of a banker's clerk. On the Sunday evening he was
asked to confer privately with Mr. Cassall, and Ferrier was left free.
Of course Lewis proposed a stroll in the grounds--what young man would
have missed the opportunity?--and he listened delightedly to that
musical, girlish talk for which he had longed during his tremendous
vigils on the Sea of Storms.
Miss Ranken was in a flutter of exultation. "Did you ever know any one
so clever as Marion?" she inquired, with quite the air of an elderly
person accustomed to judge intellects. "We knew she could do anything
with Mr. Cassall, but we never expected this. And now, Mr. Ferrier, you
won't go and get drowned in nasty cabins any more, and you'll have your
sailors all under your eye, and no more degenerate sea-sick ladies to
plague you. Why, now we've made a start, we must capture some more
millionaires, and we'll have a vessel with every fleet, and no sick men
lying on grimy floors. By the way, what a capital association that would
be--The Royal Society for the Capture of Millionaires. President and
Organizing Director, Marion Dearsley; Treasurer, Lena Ranken; General
Agent for Great Britain and the Colonies, Lewis Ferrier! Wouldn't that
be splendid? I begin to feel quite like an administrator."
This was the very longest speech that Miss Ranken was ever known to
make, and she was applauded for her remarkable excursion into practical
affairs.
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