Falconer nodded.
"The treaty that enabled you to hand over so many thousand square miles
to the government in exchange for a knighthood."
"No," said Sir Stephen, simply. "I got that for another business; but I
daresay the other thing helped. It doesn't matter. Then I--I married. I
married the daughter of a man of position, a girl who--who loved and
trusted me; who knew nothing of the past you and I know; and as I would
rather have died than that she should have known anything of it, I--"
"Conveniently and decently buried it," put in Falconer. "Oh, yes, I can
see the whole thing! You had blossomed out from Black Steve--"
Sir Stephen rose and took a step towards the door, then remembered that
he had shut it and sank down again, his face white as ashes, his lips
quivering.
--"To Sir Stephen Orme, the African millionaire, the high and lofty
English gentleman with his head full of state secrets, and his safe
full of foreign loans; Sir Stephen Orme, the pioneer, the empire
maker--Oh, yes, I can understand how naturally you would bury the
past--as you had buried your old pal and partner. The dainty and
delicate Lady Orme was to hear nothing--" Sir Stephen rose and
stretched out his hand half warningly half imploringly.
"She's dead, Falconer!" he said, hoarsely. "Don't--don't speak of her!
Leave her out, for God's sake!"
Falconer shrugged his shoulders.
"And this boy of yours--he's as ignorant as her ladyship was, of
course?"
Sir Stephen inclined his head.
"Yes," he said, huskily. "He--he knows nothing. He thinks me--what the
world sees me, what all the world, saving you, Falconer, thinks me: one
who has risen from humble but honest poverty to--what I am. You have
seen him, you can understand what I feel; that I'd rather die than that
he should know--that he should think badly of me. Falconer, I have made
a clean breast of it--I'm in your hands. I'm--I'm at your mercy. I
appeal to you"--he stretched out his white, shapely hands--"you have a
child of your own: she's as dear to you as mine is to me--I've watched
you to-night, and I've seen you look at her as she moved about and
talked and sang, with the look that my eyes wear when they rest on my
boy. I am at your mercy--not only mine, but my son's future--"
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and drew a long breath.