ll leave you to fight it out between you.'

The Colonel walked to the door, and father and son were left together.
John Jervase, banker, capitalist, driver of men, was not in the least
like himself that morning, and his hands trembled so that he was fain to
clutch one with another, and to hold both tight between his knees as he
sat.

'Look here, Polly,' he began, but Polson gazed sternly straight before
him, and gave no sign of sympathy or forgiveness. 'Look here, Polly,
I've had about a week of it, and I can't stand it any longer. You and
me's got to be friends, or else I've got to put an end to things in a
way as you won't fancy.'

He waited, but there was no response from the stolid figure in front of
him. Pol-son stared out of the window and stood silent and immobile as a
statue.

'I left you to yourself,' said Jervase, 'until I'd got everything right
and comfortable. Major de Blaequaire has gone off to Southampton, and I
believe he's on his way to Varna, somewhere in the Black Sea. I've
made a deposit with Stubbs, his lawyer, of no less than fifty thousand
pounds, my lad. That's been a shake, I tell you. I've had a good deal o'
trouble to raise that sum in a hurry, but I've done it, and there's to
be no action and no scandal of any sort until De Blaequaire comes back
again. That gives your Uncle James and me time to turn round.'

He waited again, and still Polson stood like a statue and made no
answer.

'I've done more than that,' Jervase went on. 'I've banked twelve
thousand pounds to General Boswell's credit, so that come what may he
isn't likely to suffer. If De Blaequaire carries the case on when he
comes back to England, James and me can pay him every penny of his
rightful claim, and we'll do it.'

He paused again, for his voice had once more half escaped from his
control. The boy stood before him, cold and inflexible as doom. To the
father's eye he had never looked so manly and handsome as he did at this
moment, and what with fatherly pride and self pity and a sense of the
magnanimity of his own purposes, the emotions of John Jervase were
strangely mixed.

'There'll be no trouble at all, Polly,' he said, after a pause. 'I've
put everything straight for you. You've only got to run up to London to
sign your papers, to have your commission, and go out like a gentleman.
I've brought a portmanteau with me in the carriage, with everything
you'll actually need in it for a week or two, and there's the money