"I would advise you not to trust your Voices in matters that relate to life, limb, or fortune," he said, suavely, and a veiled threat ran beneath his words. "These Voices may be deceiving you."
Mrs. Ollnee protested with vehemence. "Mr. Carew, I am content to put my _soul_ into their keeping."
He bowed and smiled. "Your faith is very wonderful." Then he added, with a glance at Mrs. Joyce, who was listening, "For myself, I would not put my second-best coat in their keeping."
Mrs. Joyce intervened at this point, and, after some little discussion of a conventional topic, offered to send Victor and his mother home in her car. Victor was not pleased by her offer. It was only putting him just that much deeper into her debt, but he could not well refuse, especially as his mother accepted it as a matter of course.
On the way he took up the question of Carew's warning. "He's right, mother. You must stop advising people to buy or sell."
"Suppose you should advise buying the wrong thing?"
"But they don't advise the wrong thing, Victor. They are always right."
"Nobody has ever reported a failure," she declared.
"Well, it's sure to come. Why should father or grandfather know any more about stocks now than he did before he died?"
She was a little nettled by his tone. "They have the constant advice of a great financier on that side."
"So Miss Wood told me. Who is this great financier who is so willing to help you decide what to do with other people's money?" he asked, cuttingly.
She hesitated a little before saying "Commodore Vanderbilt."
He could not keep back a derisive shout. "Vanderbilt! Well, and you believe 'the great commodore' comes to our little hole of a home to advise us? Oh, mother, that's too ridiculous."
"My son," she began with some asperity, "we've been all over that ground before. You don't realize how you hurt, how you dishonor me when you doubt me and laugh at me."
He felt the pain in her voice and began an apology. "I don't mean to laugh at you, mother. But you must remember that I have been a student for four years in the atmosphere of a great university, and all this business--I've got to be honest with you--it's all raving madness to me. You certainly must stop advising in business matters. Mr. Carew to-night intended to give you warning."